Just wanted to give a quick update after talking to Caps GM George McPhee and others before I crank out my story for Wednesday's paper:

- Cristobal Huet’s agent, Stephen Bartlett didn’t want to get into the specifics of the negotiations with the Caps, but McPhee atypically was willing to oblige. He said the Caps started at the 3 years/$3.7 million and Huet’s camp started at 3 years/$5 million. McPhee said the Caps came up to $4.3 and then $4.6 and finally to $5 million per season, but Bartlett/Huet decided they wanted to test the market. McPhee said the team considered going above $5 million today, but the combination of that and the four-year term was too much.

- McPhee said owner Ted Leonsis has told him he can spend the full $56.7 million if necessary

- McPhee also said Brian Pothier is "on long-term injury" and could start the season that way. Basically, as long as Pothier is on long-term injured reserve his $2.5 million doesn’t count against the cap, so instead of having a little more than $6 million left to spend, McPhee could hand out a little more than $8.5 million in contracts. If Pothier was ready to come back at say, the 41-game mark, then only $1.25 million of his deal would count against the Caps’ cap.

- McPhee said the Caps and Sergei Fedorov are still going to try to come to a deal in the next couple of days
Alright, I’ll try to post more comments from McPhee, Bartlett, Jose Theodore and Brent Johnson (caught up with him in the parking lot at K-Plex) a little later tonight.

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