Dafoe

"You can only push a person so far," Dafoe said. General manager Harry Sinden "indicated I might have to sit. Well, if that's the best for the Boston Bruins, I'll be glad to go somewhere else. How can that benefit a hockey team?"

Dafoe and his agent, Ron Salcer, met with Sinden and assistant GM Mike O'Connell on Wednesday in an attempt to end the impasse. Dafoe was asking for $4 million a year but has since lowered his demands; the Bruins have offered a three-year, $9 million contract and have not budged.

"They made a different proposal, but it's still nowhere near where we think it should be," O'Connell told the Boston Herald. "We've stated our intentions from the get-go, that the deal we offered was where we are going to be. We haven't changed that."

Dafoe told The Boston Globe that Sinden claimed the team couldn't afford his request.

"To quote Harry, he said, 'If I were to pay you what you were asking for, the Boston Bruins go bankrupt. ... I'm not going to be like these other teams and run my team into the ground,'" Dafoe said.

"At the end, I got up and left. I couldn't take it anymore. For him (Sinden) to be crying poverty and to say I'm going to bankrupt the team with what I'm asking for, I think that's ridiculous. I came home, called the real estate agent, and the sign is going up (today)."

Sinden said he would consider trading Dafoe only if it helped the team. But he still wants his goalie back.

"As far as we're concerned, there's no bridges burned. You'd have to ask him how he feels," he said. "We haven't taken our offer off the table. It's there for him to accept it if he wants it. The ideal thing for us would still be that he take our deal and sign."