In case you didn't hear, Tampa gave Brad Richards a five-year, $39 million contract extension. He would have unrestricted NEXT summer � not this summer.

His deal averages $7.8 million against the cap. All contracts are averaged even though it is very possible that Richards will have different salaries in the deal.

Although the NHL does not allow teams to front load or back load the deals for cap purposes in reporting to the league, the player retains the option of having his money distributed any way he chooses over the course of the deal.

"Brad Richards is a special hockey player and an even better person," Lightning vice-president and general manager Jay Feaster said in a statement. "He has represented this franchise with class, dignity and pride since his first day wearing a Lightning sweater."

So, Richards, Vinny Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis are all locked up. The one guy that Feaster would have loved to have held onto last summer was probably the most important piece of all � goalie Nikolai Khabibulin. That was one free agent defection _ caused by the salary cap _ that will haunt Feaster for a long time forward.

Also available are Shane Willis, Pavel Kubina, who I personally like, Chris Dingman, Steven McClaren, John Grahame and Todd Rohloff.

**

I finally caught up with Peter Forsberg the other day to ask him about all these rumors concerning his ankle surgeries.

My source _ and it's an excellent source _ says the healing process could take 6 months per ankle. Since Forsberg is having independent surgeries, that would mean he would miss all of next season (May to May, essentially).

But Forsberg told me he is going to have his second surgery the very instant the bone in his right ankle has healed � sooner than a full recovery per foot.

"Both feet should be fine in what seven months?" Forsberg told me the other day. "I won't miss the whole season. I'm second surgery [to the left foot] as soon as the bone heals on the right. I'm not waiting six months to let one foot heal and then do the other."

So, Forsberg is sticking to a projected return of early January and that he will miss just half a season.

"Foppa" travels to Carolina tomorrow morning to have his stitches removed from his right foot. He says he is feeling pretty good.

And yes, he wants to re-sign with the Flyers. Frankly, when you add in the expected time he will miss next season, he will have missed one of the two years on his deal.

For those of you who did not read my Sunday column in the Inquirer, we had Flyers' chairman Ed Snider endorsing a re-signing of Forsberg � before the surgeries are completed, if need be. Snider believes both surgeries will be successful and therefore, does not think the club needs to wait till he is healthy to be re-signed.

"We think he has more than a year left in his career," Snider told me. "If he said that [re-sign], it would be very interesting. It's something we would certainly consider. We're very optimistic that this surgery will benefit and not hurt him."

Forsberg's agent, Don Baizley told me late Thursday he expects the two sides will talk sometime in the year ahead.