Hockey Trade Rumors

When sports take a back seat to something more important, you know something bad has happened. On September 11th, football took a back seat to Pat Tillman, who decided he’d rather fight for his country than sign a large contract with the Arizona Cardinals. In September 2003, hockey took a back seat to many people around the Atlanta Thrashers, when Dany Heatley and Dan Snyder were involved in a serious car accident, Snyder dying several days later. We once again have a story about dreams of sports stardom taking a back seat because of, well, bad luck, misfortune, whatever you want to call it, as I read in this weeks issue of Sports Illustrated

So, ten days have passed since free agency started. The Mats situation continues and BG seems to be waiting for his decision…which in my mind is the right play.

Mere hours after St. Louis signed Steve Bernier to a 2.5 million dollar offer sheet, Canucks matched it.

Free agent Jason Smith, 34, has signed a 2-year, 5.2-million contract with the Ottawa Senators. The Senators needed an offensive defenceman, but had to settle for the reliable back-end play of Smith.

The St. Louis Blues have signed Steve Bernier to an offer sheet, could this be pay back for David Backes. Terms were not disclosed.

It would have been interesting to see this played out awhile longer.

The Team 1040 in Vancouver is reporting that a Czech newspaper is reporting that Pavel Demitra has signed a 3 year 12 million dollar deal with the Canucks. This has been reported for weeks and this could very well be a pre-curser to Sundin signing with the team.

The Vancouver Sun says that Ohlund, who has been with the nucks his entire career, will speak to Sundin about playing in Vancouver.

Ohlund told Elliot Pap if Mats calls him, “he’ll put in a good word”. Then he goes on to wonder if he should call Mats instead.

The Tampa Bay Lightning have signed veteran forward Mark Recchi to a 1 year contract worth 1.25 million plus bonuses which could make the contract worth up to 1.5 million. Adding Recchi is a great move for the Lightning as it will give them a great mentor for Steven Stamkos. The Lightning also signed Evgeny Artyukhin to a 2 year 1.9 million dollar deal. Artyukhin comes back to Tampa after playing 2 seasons in Russia. As it stands, the Lightning look like this heading into the 2008-09 season:

A list of players have filed for arbitration and Senators forward Antoine Vermette and Panthers defenseman Jay Bouwmeester lead the top of the list.

TSN reports Matt “Cookie” Cooke has signed a 2-year contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins worth $1.2 million a year.
The move was done in large part to replace the departure of Jarkko Ruutu, also a former Canuck.

Maybe the more interesting news is that it seems the Pens are very close to signing the Finnish SM-Liga’s leading scorer, Janne Pesonen, a 26-year old left winger, to a one-year, two-way deal. Could he be the missing link to play with Crosby or Malkin?

Never in my time as a Ranger fan have I heard as much praise for Glen Sather. It seems that with the pick up of Redden, the re-signing of Roszival, the Zherdev trade, then the Naslund and Kalinin signings people are talking about Sather in ways I could have never imagined.

But really, why should Sather be praised when all he as done is potentially cripple the New York Rangers for the next 5 years?

The Philadelphia Flyers have not been able to pull off any big moves to this point of the off-season. Although there were reports they were after Dan Boyle and Wade Redden. They have for once only maintained and added depth players. The big moves that they made last year were the moves which were meant to give the team a strong future for the next few years to come.

How does everyone predict they will do this upcoming season? Seems as alot of people feel they are not going to do too well. I think they have upgraded their defense and some of the younger guys who are a year older should help them to be a competitive team again. Nothing is a giving in the NHL outside of the Detroit Red Wings. So who knows maybe they could make it to the final but it is all about being healthy at the right time. They found out this past spring pretty quick.