NHL's exorbitant free-agent salaries irk some executives.(South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

FORT LAUDERDALE _ Apparently, in most cases when general managers say they realize what kind of dangerous, downward spiral the NHL is headed in, it's all talk.

That's because yet again this summer, managers got their owners to recklessly throw around money. And yet again, some of the signings had onlookers scratching their heads in amazement.

It was another summer of fiscal insanity and one has to wonder just how much more the NHL can take. Maybe the almost inevitable labor stoppage of 2004-05 can't come fast enough.

Earlier this summer, after several mind-boggling multimillion-dollar deals were handed out in the first couple of days of free agency, Vancouver GM Brian Burke lashed out at his colleagues.

"I have never been more embarrassed to work in the NHL as I was on July 1 and 2," Burke said at the time. "I know we can't support the salaries. I know that some of the teams who have spent that money are doing it without the financial capability to pay the money.

"I'm running my business like a business. We're going head-to-head with people who are nuts, absolutely out of their minds."

Jeremy Roenick got a five-year, $37.5 million deal from Philadelphia before free agency even began. On the first two days of July, Pierre Turgeon (five years) and Donald Audette signed with Dallas and Luc Robitaille in Detroit _ all for big money.