Lars Eller and David Desharnais currently playing in Europe.

Here is a look at the current statistics for the Habs players playing in the  KHL, Czech Extraliga, NLA, SM-Liiga and the ECHL.

• Colby Armstrong is the most recent to sign a lockout contract, with the Utah Grizzlies of the ECHL. Scott Gomez, David Desharnais and Lars Eller have also just recently signed that’s why they have only played a handful of games. Andrei Markov was injured early on and missed a big chunk of games, but has come back and played well.

What a fitting image for this fitting time.

This is disgusting. Thursday night the NHLPA requested a union’s executive board of 30 members for a vote to give it authority to file a ‘disclaimer of interest’. This would ultimatley disband the PA and would allow the players to file a class-action anti-trust law suit against the NHL.

In law, a class-action, a class suit, or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued.

via Wikipedia: Class-Action

The United States Antitrust laws were put in place by federal and state governments to regulate corporations. They keep companies from becoming too large and fixing prices, and also encourage competition so that consumers can receive quality products at reasonable prices. These laws give businesses an equal opportunity to compete for market share. Preventing monopolies ensures that consumer demand is met in a fair and balanced way. There are four sections that the laws focus on including agreements between competitors, contracts between buyers and sellers, mergers and monopolies.

via Wikipedia: United States antitrust law

Earlier today the NHL has announced that they have filed a class-action complaint. The league is looking for a declaration confirming the legal ramifications of the lockout, and submitted an unfair labour practice charge with the National Labour Relations Board in New York. These two moves by the League are like defensive moves before the NHLPA explodes itself up.

The NHL and NHLPA will now likely settle this dispute in the court room instead of a meeting room in a 5 star hotel. One good note about this is that the National Basketball Association and National Basketball Players Association went through this route last year and solved all or most of their issues within 12 days.

The NBPA’s main negotiator Jeffrey Kessler says it would be a wise decision for the NHLPA to use the ‘disclaimer of interest’ to end the lockout.

“I think this is much more likely to lead to a settlement sooner,” Kessler said Friday. “The players have concluded that they are on the verge of possibly deciding that it is better not to be a union and using the anti-trust laws to attack the lockout, which all fans should be happy with because it’ll work.

via TSN The Canadian Press

Good news or bad news?

Peter Budaj has signed with his hometown club HC Banska.

Marc Bergevin’s first signing after he was named GM of the Habs was forward Colby Armstrong to a 1 year 1 million dollar deal.  Since there is still a lockout in effect Armstrong has now signed with the Utah Grizzlies of the ECHL, a third tier North American professional hockey league, Official Release. Armstrong has been waiting it out for a while now pondering what he should do and recently went on record with the Jay and Dan Podcast of TSN and said, paraphrasing, ‘I am not really looking for options to play somewhere else at the moment’ but I guess things changed quickly. Now that Armstrong is going to be playing over in the ECHL you will be looking forward to seeing him face-off against Scott Gomez….or not.

“@molinaripg: Former Penguins RW Colby Armstrong, now with #Habs, has signed lockout deal with Utah of the ECHL.”

— Dave Stubbs (@Dave_Stubbs) December 6, 2012

Peter Budaj will also be on the move soon as he is in the signing process of a lockout deal with his hometown club HC Banska of the Slovak Extraliga, Official Release. HC Banska has also just signed Tampa Bay Lightning forward Dana Tyrell to a lockout deal.

Meanwhile… Loui Eriksson signed on with Davos of the Swiss League, and Peter Budaj joined HC Banska of the Slovak Extraliga.

— David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) December 5, 2012

11 players from the Canadiens are now playing either overseas in Europe (KHL etc..) or somwhere else in North America (ECHL etc..)