Draft day activity
June 25th, 2006, 12:22 pm
I actually watched some of the NHL draft. I guess I am now officially hardcore. I mostly watched because the rumors are that the Sharks are going to trade either Toskala or Nabokov, and a lot of deals go down on draft day for picks. The Sharks made a minor deal, trading their first and second round picks to Montreal for their first round, so they could draft Ty Wishart, a defensemen. There were two big trades so far- Alex Tanguay was traded to the Flames for Jordan Leopold and a 2nd round pick on Friday. On draft day, the Wild traded a prospect and a 1st round pick for Pavol Demitra.
It’s fun to see what these trades say about the teams involved. In the first trade, Calgary is recognizing that they need offense, and are willing to give up D to get it. The Avs clearly aren’t super confident that they are going to re-sign Rob Blake, so they wanted to shore up blueline help. The second trade says that the Wild are ready to spend cash to make a legitimate playoff run, and hope that Demitra will entice Marian Gaborik to stay. As for the Kings, they aren’t expecting to contend for the division, and are rebuilding.
Lots of rumors floating around. Apparantly the Kings offered Alexander Frolov and Dustin Brown (Doug says Mattieu Garon too) for Nabokov. Two problems with that deal. The first big reason is I don’t want to play against Nabokov 8 times a year. The second is that neither Frolov or Brown are really proven scorers. Frolov is a talented kid, would be great on the power play, but I’m not sure he could ever score 35 or 40. For a solid #1 goalie, you should be able to get that. Brown is so young, he’s a wild card. He only had 28 points last year playing the whole season, and was a minus player. That’s 4th line material.
Doug told me about two more rumors. The Lightning are offering Ruslan Fedotenko and Frederik Modin for Nabby. Same problem with that deal as the Kings deal- I don’t think the players are good enough. They are both roughly 50 point scorers. I’d rather get a 70 or 80 point scorer for Nabby than two 3rd or 4th liners. The last is the Sens are offering Martin Havlat for Toskala. Now we’re talking! Havlat is a great scorer, and had a great playoffs (6-5-11 in 9 games) after coming back from a shoulder injury last year. I would make that deal. Imagine Cheechoo, Thornton, and Havlat on a line! Or even Marleau with Havlat would be awesome.
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Let me play catch up for a minute. There is one player that I’m salivating over – Elias. For the most part, I think all the talk of the defensemen available is overrated (but Pronger asking for a trade is interesting). Don’t know if the Ducks have any chance with Elias, but Scott may have some pull. It’d be what Patrick wants – higher tempo with more creativity.
Just a couple points about your awards words (well stated by the way). I believe that all voting is done prior to the playoffs – so the NY/NJ series didn’t do Jagr in. Probably a little bit of “who’s hotter now?”. I, too, loved the division names when they were Smyth, Patrick, etc, but it’s not like they were that way forever. In fact, those monikers may have been adopted in the 70s. I can handle the NHL being more fan-friendly in that regard.
As for rumours, I’ve read that Wilson turned down the Toskala trade (better to get rid of your high dollar goalie). But that gets to something I think you brought up earlier – why sign both midway through last year? They brought this situation on themselves. Some Orange County rumours have Giguere going to Tampa for Martin St. Louis. I’m more inclined to hold on to two number 1 goalies at least for the first half of the year. Haven’t heard too much else.
Have you seen the new Ducks logo and colors?
Point taken on the MVP voting… I didn’t know exactly when that happened.
I don’t know this for sure, but I think Wilson turned down the trade because Havlat could not be signed to a multiyear deal. Trading a #1 goalie for a year of Havlat isn’t enough. San Jose isn’t exactly a coveted stop- yet. I heard that we offered Chara $7M, and he turned it down to go to Boston, a team in shambles. I think the Bruins may be next year what the Penguins were this year- full of free agent talent, and in the cellar.
As for the Ducks logo and colors, all I can say is ‘meh’. The webbed foot as the ‘D’ is kinda cool, but overall, pretty unexciting. It’s 70% black and white!