Hockey Trade Rumors

In retrospect, the 1998 draft is one of the most loaded in recent memory; Levacalier, Gagne, Regehr, Brad Stuart, Tanguay, Mark Bell, Cheechoo, Ribeiro, Gomez… Brad Richards wasn’t drafted til the third round (that’s right, all your teams missed him), and Michael Ryder not til the 8th. (And, sadly relevant, Steve Moore and Jiri Fischer)
…Drafted in the 7th round (183) by Chicago, Tyler Arnason has been regarded by Blackhawks brass as the first line center to replace the gaping hole left by Roenick’s departure in ’96. This has been amplified as of late with the blackhawks continuing downward spiral of offensive production… IE: Daze’s reoccuring back problems (early retirement?) and the numbskull decision to trade Steve Sullivan to a division rival for draft picks.

The problem is, Arnason is not the leader they want him to be… after he clashed repeatedly with his former coach Brian [old-school] Sutter, GM Dale Tallon figured he’d bring in Arnason’s old coach from Norfolk (AHL), Trent Yawney… but, SURPRISE, there is almost no difference between his performance this year and his performance in the last NHL season.

Fact is, Arnason is not a first line center… that does not say anything about his talent, it just says something about his personality. Furthermore, he does not play well in old-school grind systems like that of the Sutters… he belongs on a new-school offensive team like the Senators or the Predators… or maybe the Canucks or Oilers. Apparantly the teams that are most interested in him are Toronto or Florida, two teams that could be fast… but are certainly in the limbo of deconstruction/ reconstruction.

But lately, Tallon has been denouncing the vultures’ requests to feast on his younguns (pun intended), instead trying to attract them towards his hugely overpaid/ underachieving vets… lapointe, aucoin and the fallen bulin wall…

Chicago is certainly among the most dismal organizations in the league (maybe only outdone by Crosby’s penguin petting-zoo – Leclair and Recchi the reluctant zoo keepers)… Tallon should get a gauntlet of scouts and start trading for younguns and draft picks… but, in the process, should either keep a couple key veteran characters or acquire a couple in trades. He should have a coach in mind when he does all of this… if Sutter is coming back, model the team after his brother’s grinding Flames

Arnason will be detrimental to a rebuilding period (see the successful construction of the Senators – remember when Yashin and Daigle had the incident of ignoring the coach and ordering themselves a 3-minute shift? – if they’re biting the hand that feeds, slap them out for as much as you can get for them – that’s sports business 101)

DEAR MR TALLON: to attract attention to your overpaid vets, construct package deals… Arnason and Lapointe [or Barnaby] for the Senators maybe…

Aucoin? (overpaid to the tune of 4 mil/year)

Khabibulin? (the bulin wall could fetch a good young goalie and a savage package of promising young players or character vets – Khabibulin would certainly better serve a contender than a rebuilding team)

With the impending blue-light special in Chicago, who do you think they should get rid of? Who should they keep? And which teams could benefit from getting some servings off the buffet that will likely be their trading block?