While everyone waits for Mats Sundin to fully screw over the future of at least two NHL teams before making the decision on his future, despite having been away from the game for a full three months already, we are treated to the Marian Hossa spectacle.

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Wings' Henrik Zetterberg, battling Ducks' Francois Beauchemin, would boost any linemate.

Photograph by : Getty Images

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Talk about a cynical approach to the free-agent process. This guy is about as sincere in his commitment as a guy deciding which chocolate he wants to select from a box of assorted creams. Evidently he's chosen "championship delight" before having to make the choice all over again next year. Gag me with a spoon.

Hossa has decided to step into Detroit for one fun-filled season, pick up his ring, and then go for the big financial score the following season when some poor team will lay out a huge wad of cash for some guy who's already invited himself to the championship dance by joining a team that may well have got there whether he'd been involved or not. How motivated will he be for that poor team?

It's like in the NBA when guys who used to be really good players who have been bought out of their contracts and become unrestricted free agents, like Michael Finley was three seasons ago -- after Dallas coughed up millions to offload him -- and decide to join the team that has already won two titles, like San Antonio.

They literally invite themselves to the party and they are willing to come for virtually nothing so the receiving team is only too glad to cement their chances of a long and lucrative playoff run by having the clown come along for the ride. They'd be nuts not to.

This is clearly the case with the Wings and Hossa. Sure he's making a solid whack of cash to invite himself to the party, but he's fitting in exactly with the needs of the team signing him. The Wings want him, but only at their convenience. Once they have to pay their real players, like Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen, in the '09-'10 season, Hossa is about as meaningful to them as a drunken house guest. He'll get turfed the moment that time arrives, and he knows it.

One presumes Hossa's plan is to go for one year to Detroit, put up ridiculously-high numbers while playing with Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk or Valtteri Filppula, and call himself a Cup champion. Then he takes the big money the following year from the team willing to risk that he won't retire on their dime.

Never even mind the fact that some insiders felt he was wired into Detroit by some previous, devious agreement anyway, and that the first day's bidding may have been nothing more than a sham. After all, who really cares? The guy can go anywhere he wants and whether or not he happens to tell someone before the appropriate date doesn't really affect the substance of the matter. The league has more important things to concern itself with anyway, particularly with the game on an interesting upswing these days.

Further, this is going to give the league its long-sought post-CBA dominant team, a clear Cup favourite from the outset, like the Boston Red Sox were to baseball this year. Detroit will be the team to beat from day one and there will be several teams stepping up to try to knock them off.