''I should be paid what I deserve to be paid,'' he said. ''Circumstances have changed since then,'' he said. Their salaries of around $1 million were similar to Oates' new salary, but those big salaries kicked in sooner (Oates was still on an earlier contract when he signed his extension).

He said he'd made a mistake by signing before the market changed (it always changes), and players like John Cullen in Hartford and future Hall of Famer Ron Francis in Pittsburgh signed even pricier multi-year deals after lengthy holdouts. Oates went public - initially through his agent - with his demands and the situation lingered for months. The real kicker - one of relevance to today's fans caught in the NHL lockout? Oates had signed a new contract extension just six months earlier.īut the market changed, and Oates decided that he deserved a renegotiation. Or else he'd demand a trade away from the club that, by his own admission, helped make him a star and enabled new endorsement deals.

It was sometime around December 1991 - more than 200 points into his lethal three-year pairing with Brett Hull - that Oates first demanded an in-season renegotiation of his contract or else. The saga wouldn't end until Oates was traded to the Boston Bruins in February, but it began well before that. ''We expect them to live up to it, too.'' ''We've made a long-term commitment, a total commitment to him, and we're going to live up to it 100 percent,'' Quinn said. Oates has dropped his demand for guaranteed money and wants to earn his raise through restructured bonuses. Oates' signature is on a contract worth $3.2 million over four years.

Oates has threatened to walk out after the All-Star break this weekend if the Blues don't give him a raise or trade him. With 1,420 points in 1,337 NHL regular season games, Adam Oates deserves a thousand accolades as he's inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday night.īut history shouldn't give him a pass for his part in dissolving one of the best offensive partnerships the sport has ever seen.įrom the St.

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