While Dale Tallon was insisting his team had accomplished everything it wanted at the start of free agency, he also admitted to still feeling a twinge of regret.

"I wish I was still a player," the Chicago Blackhawks general manager lamented not long after landing one of the day's marquee names in defenseman Brian Campbell.

Cristobal Huet gets a four-year, $22.5 million deal from the Chicago Blackhawks. (Getty Images)

None of those deals, by the way, involved the new market's biggest prizes, Marian Hossa and Mats Sundin. But the money and the terms being given were in many cases once worthy of only elite players and still stunning now, even if the demand for talent exceeded supply.

"Yes" said Tallon, when asked if he was surprised by the money that was spent. "July 1 you always overpay, and then it trickles to August when you get bargains."

The Blackhawks didn't get any bargains with their signings. In fact they arguably went over market value by giving Campbell the richest contract of the day at $56 million over eight years, and getting goaltender Cristobal Huet to accept a four-year, $22.5 million deal.

Campbell is a high-end puck mover who logs a lot of minutes and he will be a boost to what is already a good young Chicago defense. But there was a feeling around the league that anything over $6.5 million per season was too much for Campbell.

Huet, meanwhile, vaulted into the pay scale of top-tier goaltenders, despite the fact he has yet to distinguish himself in postseason play and Chicago still has goalie Nikolai Khabibulin for one more year at $6.75 million.

But Tallon said the dollars don't always have to make sense to those on the outside.

Sometimes that's because a team feels it has to react to a move by a rival, and sometimes teams feel they can't afford to miss out on a player they covet. Though in Chicago's case, it is mainly because the Original Six team has gone through a fundamental change in direction since Rocky Wirtz took over as owner from his father, William, who died last September.

The younger Wirtz brought in former Cubs executive John McDonough to head the marketing effort, got the team back on local television for the first time in two decades and welcomed back into the family previously disowned legends like Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita. Plus, it didn't hurt to have dynamic rookies Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews lead an exciting young team that got back on the local sports radar despite falling just short of the playoffs.

All of it helped the franchise reconnect with its deep roots and fan base. If keeping that momentum going means spending more this summer, the team was willing to do it, Tallon said.

"The thing is now we have the resources to do it," said Tallon, who added the team is now done making major moves this summer. "We created a buzz in this market. We started to sell more and more ticket sponsorships and we want to continue, so you're going to overpay. But we wanted to make a statement."

Apparently, so did several of the other teams that were among the most aggressive and most intriguing on the opening day of free agency. Here's a look at the deals they made.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Their new owners seem like they're playing Fantasy hockey with their real-life team, but Oren Koules and Len Barrie looked determined to prove they are serious about re-invigorating a team that won the Stanley Cup just four years ago.

The duo has been remaking the Lightning quickly since taking over last week with a series of interesting, if perhaps pricey moves. They jumped the gun on everyone by trading for the negotiating rights and then signing forwards Ryan Malone, Vaclav Prospal and Gary Roberts before the market opened, and getting Vinnie Lecavalier to agree to a nine-year contract extension.

Tampa Bay lost out on Brian Rolston, who ended up signing with New Jersey for four years and $20 million, but it picked up veteran goalie Olaf Kolzig, a 27-goal scorer in Radim Vrbata and a gritty forward in Adam Hall after the market opened. The money and the terms for some of these players may be excessive, but chances are the Lightning's new owners haven't finished striking yet.

Edmonton Oilers: Last summer, Edmonton's Kevin Lowe rattled every other GM's cage by tendering offer sheets to a couple of restricted free agents, and now he's making noise simply by wheeling and dealing.

Lowe has a brand-new owner as well, one Darryl Katz who is an extremely wealthy Edmontonian intent on having his team make a mark quickly as well. The Oilers haven't made the playoffs since going to Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals, and they have had trouble drawing top free agents to their northern outpost for the last few seasons, so Lowe has been busy reshaping the roster through trades.

He acquired Lubomir Visnovsky, one of the league's most underrated offensive defenseman, by trading Jarret Stoll and Matt Greene to the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday, and before the market opened Lowe sent defenseman Joni Pitkanen to Carolina for power forward Erik Cole. The Oilers made another deal, sending left wing Rafi Torres to Columbus for young center Gilbert Brule, a move that saves them nearly $2 million in cap space this season and sets up a potentially big signing.

Washington Capitals: The Capitals took a couple of calculated gambles, re-signing young defenseman Mike Green to a lucrative long-term contract after just one breakout season for the players, and grabbing free agent goalie Jose Theodore, who hasn't convinced everyone that he has put his career back on track.

Green was really a no-brainer because as Caps GM George McPhee noted, there is a dearth of talented right-handed shooting defenseman with offensive skills, and someone would have made an offer sheet. McPhee said the Caps would have matched any offer, but this way they got to make a deal on their own terms.

That's much the way Washington did things with Theodore, getting the ex-Avalanche after Huet priced himself out of its budget. Huet came to Washington at the trade deadline and was instrumental in the team's title run, but the Capitals have some young goalies in their pipeline and weren't ready for a long commitment.

Theodore, the former Vezina winner, rebounded in the second half last season after struggling for several years in Colorado, accepted a two-year deal for $9 million, a pay cut of about $1 million per season from his last salary because the sense is he still has something to prove.

"That's why you have to be careful signing goaltenders," McPhee said. "If you have a top five goalie and you want to make a long-term deal for big money. That makes sense. Any of the other goalies, it's probably better to be prudent and go short term to keep them sharp. If it doesn't work out you can get out of it, and if it does you can always renew."

Icings

• Vancouver GM Mike Gillis seems to have as few friends out there among his ex-agent colleagues as he does among his new counterparts. Gillis ruffled a few feathers in the fraternity by the way he usurped the Canucks job from Dave Nonis, and that seems to have played a big part in his inability to make a big deal at the draft. Still Gillis is intent on making a big splash. So he made an offer to Sundin for two years at $10 million per, but was unable to interest the Swedish star.

• Big day for former Senator Wade Redden, who was signed for $39 million over six years by the Rangers. This one is right up there with Huet's signing in terms of being a head-scratcher. Redden may have been worth that kind of money a couple of years ago, but he's been on the decline for the last two seasons and at age 31, was being offered about half that much by Ottawa to stay. There was some thought that the Oilers might cough up that kind of coin for a hometown kid, but they got Visnovsky instead, and yet, just like the good old days, there were the Rangers to open up the vault.

• Re-signing your own players doesn't always create the same stir as getting new ones during free agency, but they were several important ones worth noting. The biggest came in Pittsburgh where the Penguins worked out a long extension with Evgeni Malkin, but the Anaheim Ducks made an important move as well by getting Corey Perry to accept a new five-year, $26.25 million deal. Anaheim still has to move a fair amount of salary to accommodate that. Then there are the Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings, who re-signed trade-deadline pickup defenseman Brad Stuart, a valuable performer down the stretch and in the playoffs.

• There was a run on goaltenders on the first day, with eight changing teams including Curtis Joseph, who re-signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs for one season at $700,000. There were some lottery winners among lesser known defensemen like Mark Streit, who picked up a five-year, $20.5 million contract from the Islanders after making $600,000 from Montreal last season. And Jeff Finger signed a four-year, $14 million deal with Toronto after getting $475,000 from the Avs.

They said it

"I wasn't looking for a trade, but I think the way things have gone over the last two years, if you look at our roster, something had to give. Unfortunately I was the one that had to go. It's not the greatest side of the business but it is a business and everyone understands that." -- Erik Cole on being traded to the Oilers by the Hurricanes.