Hockey Trade Rumors

Every year the Senators are the clear Cup favorite, and every single year, for the past ten years, they’ve found a way to lose. This year they have something they haven’t before. Cup experience in Mike Commodore and Cory Stillman.
Now, the Senators have played very well, but this is a weak Eastern conference, and the Senators have actually lost both games since the Stillman trade. Don’t think for a second that the Senators are done. This is Bryan Murray, a man whose acquisition of Steve Thomas was huge for his Mighty Ducks at the 2003 trade deadline.

So who will the Senators bring in? A player I’d really consider in their shoes is Blue Jackets defenseman Adam Foote. I love Foote, always have. I’d hate to see him in Ottawa. The man’s good physically, his contract is running out, if you wanted to re-sign him he shouldn’t be too expensive, he’s got two Cups, and he brings loads of leadership and experience. I think the Senators become Cup favorites, in my eyes, if they add an Adam Foote.

Nikolai Khabibulin should be made available by Chicago, but don’t look for him to go to a contender. More a team looking to next year. The Fourth Period has the Senators interested, but I’d look more to a return to Tampa Bay, or possibly Los Angeles, or Edmonton as decent destinations.

Does anyone actually think Olli Jokinen is going to get moved? I severely doubt it. He’s been “unhappy” and “about to be moved” since I’ve been reading and posting at HTR, which goes about back to 2002…. He’s staying in Florida, he’s their franchise. Jacques Martin has seen the backlash from the Roberto Luongo deal, and it’s not happening again.

Vancouver has fallen out of the playoffs, and have battled some severe inconsistency. They may look to sell off a few impending free agents. I mean, of course the core of Bieksa, Luongo, the Sedin’s, and so on will stay, but aging captain Markus Naslund and second line center Brendan Morrison may be made available.

The Kings should move off some of the guys they brought in as free agents. Kyle Calder, Rob Blake, Tom Preissing, Brad Stuart, Michal Handzus, and Jaroslav Modry aren’t going to help them as of now. Add to their young core. This team will be deadly by 2010. Dustin Brown, Mike Cammalleri, and Anze Kopitar, the pacific division better be scared, especially when you add Stamkos or Doughty into that.

The Edmonton Oilers reportedly would like to sell, but the only two players they really could are Joni Pitkanen and Dwayne Roloson. It’ll be ahrd to find a taker for Roloson at $3 million the way he’s played this year. Pitkanen, a young impending RFA, should attract more interest.

Onto the Islanders. This is pretty sad. In my entire lifetime, the Islanders have placed above 8th place twice. 7th in 1993, and 5th in 2002, making the playoffs just six times in a 15 year span. They’ll likely have to move well traveled center Mike Sillinger, forwards Ruslan Fedotenko, Josef Vacisek, Miroslav Satan, Mike Comrie, and Trent Hunter, as well as defensemen Freddy Meyer and Bryan Berard. None of them are terribly big names, and at this point it’s a crap shoot guessing where they’ll go. Likely to whoever wants to keep up in the Western conference arms race.

Tomorrow, I’ll be looking at some of the Eastern conference buyers other than the Senators. This should include the Philadelphia Flyers, Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, and Pittsburgh Penguins.

-Bill