Mario Lemieux was about to tee off Sunday at the John Elway Celebrity Golf Tour event in suburban Denver.

	Mario Lemieux's Penguins will hang on to free agents, like goalie Johan Hedberg, until they can't afford them.

Actually, Lemieux could have teed off in one of several ways, but he chose to save his aggression for the little white golf ball, rather than take a verbal swing at the Colorado Avalanche.

On Oct. 3, he and the Penguins will open the season in Pittsburgh against the defending Stanley Cup champions, and the word had just broken that Colorado had re-signed Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy and Rob Blake -- in deals that will earn them a combined $27.6 million next season.

Sakic and Blake signed for five years, plus an option season; Roy is tied up for three. All three players received no-trade clauses, which represented a stunning break in precedent for Avalanche general manager Pierre Lacroix. And they will be playing with Peter Forsberg, who made $10 million last season.

It's enough to make an owner -- an opposing owner -- sigh. Lemieux, who has publicly proclaimed that his franchise can't afford Jaromir Jagr's $20.7-million salary over the next two seasons, was talking in a market in which Jagr would be just one of the boys making megamillions.

"It's always tough," Lemieux told the group of reporters. "We try to run our team like a business. We can't afford three guys making $10 million."

In part, the Avalanche contract hat trick grew out of Lacroix's one-for-all, all-for-one meeting with the three players on June 12 -- a meeting Lacroix talked about at Ray Bourque's retirement news conference last week.

"Some way, some how, you have to fix your price for happiness, and that's what we did as a team," Lacroix said. "And that's what (the players) have done on their side."

The gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening, and the most aggressive moves have been made by already elite franchises -- Colorado, Detroit, Dallas, St. Louis and Philadelphia.

That is not a scoop. There will be no alleged revelatory crawl on the bottom of your television about it. The gap is a familiar phenomenon, and in all professional sports. The NHL doesn't have a salary cap, yet the gap involves more than a measure of willingness to spend money. The Capitals were willing to make a serious run at Jeremy Roenick, but passively were waiting until July 1 to do so -- and got burned for adhering to the spirit of the rules. As the free agency period unfolds, the Rangers might be able to convince an elite player to take their money, and they probably will swing the trade for Jagr, but that's not a certainty.

But the Sabres continue to act as if they are panhandlers, holding up a cardboard sign at the bottom of a freeway ramp and begging for operating capital to make it through next season ("WILL SKATE FOR FOOD"). The Oilers' peddling of Doug Weight continued the pattern of trading off veterans before they are on the verge of unrestricted free agency. Francisco Franco still is dead, the Penguins still have the oldest arena in the league and a correspondingly limited revenue stream. The Maple Leafs never were able to even approach Blake and see if his desire to return to his Ontario roots would mean he would be willing to defer much of his salary. And all the Canadian franchises remain handicapped by financial realities.

Yes, the Bruins actually looked more interested in trying to win than sell hot dogs on Monday, but their signing of Martin Lapointe for $5 million a year showed that doling out money isn't the only answer. Lapointe is a gritty player, and even Colorado would have loved to have him at the right price, but FIVE MILLION A YEAR from a franchise that grouses about being able to afford Jason Allison? What's wrong with this picture?

All of that, coupled with players' desires to play for winning teams as they collect their millions (and millions and millions) is adding up to the power swinging more decisively to selected markets.

Is this bad for hockey? Depends on your perspective. Sometimes, you get the feeling that NHL owners want a salary cap as an excuse for inertia as much as they covet it as a means of cost containment.

Is this bad for hockey? Depends on your perspective. Sometimes, you get the feeling that NHL owners want a salary cap as an excuse for inertia as much as they covet it as a means of cost containment.

The ice isn't level in terms of revenue and other issues, but all owners are playing by the same rules. The ambitious ones are finding ways to scramble. It's comical to witness men and women who made their fortunes through free-market principles act as if free-market principles are anathema in the business of sports.

The Pittsburgh situation borders on the bizarre. No, actually, it long ago crossed the border of the Republic of Bizarre, with passport in hand. Lemieux, the owner who played such a strong role in nudging salaries and standards upward as a player, and his partners can't afford Jagr -- although there also is a component of growing tired of having to nurture Jagr's fragile ego. Jagr shrugs and says, hey, it's a business, he understands, and he always will be the 15-year-old who idolized Lemieux. Wayne Gretzky's Coyotes are going to be as bad as those sightlines from the America West Arena balcony.

Around them, the elite are getting better -- or, in the case of the Avalanche, at least showing the necessary financial commitment to remain on top.

In Colorado, the biggest unknown as July 1 approached was owner Stan Kroenke. Would his palpable excitement over the Stanley Cup victory in his first season as owner translate into a mandate to Lacroix to do whatever it takes to hold the team together?

The answer was yes. Kroenke passed the test. Yes, Lacroix got some financial relief when Ray Bourque retired, freeing up $5.5 million for next season. He shaved some payroll by trading Chris Dingman and Nolan Pratt, and also by allowing defenseman Jon Klemm to leave as an unrestricted free agent and sign with the Blackhawks. So the initial bump wasn't much for the Avs.

Yet those long-term deals for Blake and Sakic were big-time commitments and statements of resolve. And it also wouldn't have been shocking if Kroenke had ordered a significant retrenchment, leading to the loss of at least one of the marquee free agents. Remember, Kroenke is a minority owner -- and significant player -- with the St. Louis Rams, in a league with non-guaranteed salaries and a relatively tight salary cap.

But he stepped up, to keep up -- and ahead -- in the West.

Kroenke is on record as being in favor of some sort of salary control in the next collective bargaining agreement, but he doesn't view the Colorado signings as anything but the right way to do business -- under today's rules.

Kroenke, who is married to a Wal-Mart heiress, but has made his own mark in the business world, noted that real-estate development is his primary business.

"This is an investment," he said of the signings. "You don't invest when you don't have a real good feeling about what you're investing in."

A lot was being made of the financial "sacrifices" made by Colorado's Big Three to skip at least a testing of the open market. There's an element of truth in that, but it was being overblown.

Although Lacroix was being truthful when he said he didn't have signed documentation with Roy until 11:30 ET Saturday night, Roy most likely has had some sort of tacit agreement with Lacroix for months. The $25.5 million over three years wasn't a sign of complete financial surrender on the goaltender's part. Lacroix said that he then had verbal agreements with both Sakic and Blake shortly before midnight ET, and that he didn't leave the Avalanche team offices until the middle of the night.

Blake didn't get Chris Pronger money, but he got more than the eminently fair offer he considered insulting when the Kings made it last season.

The Colorado-Detroit rivalry will remain elite vs. elite. And if it ever comes down to a Roy-Hasek matchup in a playoff series again, that in itself could be worth the $1,324 price of admission (or whatever playoff tickets will cost in Denver next spring).

Only Sakic was guaranteed of a significantly better deal on the open market. Of the three deals, only Sakic's should be cause for hand-wringing from the NHL Players' Association, but it also was interesting that the $50.5 million over the first five years left him above the $10 million benchmark -- or what Forsberg and Paul Kariya made last season. His agent, Don Baizley, also handles Forsberg and Kariya.

Around the Avs, the Red Wings, Blues and Stars have scrambled -- and it might not stop here. Dominik Hasek's acquisition by the Red Wings was eye-popping even before any other names were considered; but it also was an affirmation that Detroit has wearied of Chris Osgood's mercurial play and realized that his teammates had gotten to the point where they used him as an excuse. Detroit wasn't as resilient to injuries as the Avs were in the playoffs, but the Wings were the best team in the league down the stretch, before the injuries struck. No, that cupboard isn't yet bare, and the Colorado-Detroit rivalry will remain elite vs. elite. And if it ever comes down to a Roy-Hasek matchup in a playoff series again, that in itself could be worth the $1,324 price of admission (or whatever playoff tickets will cost in Denver next spring).

The Blues' ambivalence about bringing Pierre Turgeon back remains puzzling; one explanation was that they were preparing a run at Sakic and Roy, which would have made for interesting chats between Kroenke and Bill Laurie at those Wal-Mart clan reunions and at University of Missouri basketball games. But Turgeon signed with the Stars, the Blues picked up Doug Weight and now the Blues are trying to figure out whether Brent Johnson can be the answer in goal after telling Roman Turek to get thee to Calgary.

The Flyers' re-signing of John LeClair and acquisition of Roenick were significant, and has anyone seen Eric Lindros lately?

It's wrong to say the rich are getting richer in the NHL.

The ambitious are getting better.

Terry Frei is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. His feedback email address is ChipHilton23@hotmail.com.