The Buffalo Sabres have made a few splashes during the deadline. We all know about them picking up Halak and Stewart from the Blues for Miller and Ott. Both guys who went to the Blues will be a help to St. Louis for their run to the playoffs. After that deal, Buffalo had two more big moves up their sleeve. First was shipping Jaroslav Halak out again, sending him and a 3rd round pick in 2014 to the Washington Capitals for Michal Neuvirth and Rostislav Klesla. Neuvirth played only 13 games in DC behind Braden Holtby so by sending him to Buffalo he will get more playing time, splitting time in net with Jhonas Enroth. With the Sabres adding Klesla he could possibly add another solid presence on the Buffalo blue line, when he gets called up to the big leagues. Washington benefits bigtime by adding Halak to their team. tehy now have two solid starting goalies who could split time in net with Halak and Holtby. Both guys could provide stable goaltending come playoff time.
Besides seeing Halak moved, there were three other big goalies traded during the deadline. Devan Dubnyk was sent from the Predators, as he hadn't played there very much since he was traded there, to the Montreal Canadiens for future considerations. With Price hurt at the moment the Habs needed another netminder to hold the fort down along with Peter Budaj till Price gets healthy. The Florida Panthers were involved with the other two big moves among goaltenders, trying to set that position for the future down in Sunrise. The biggest move was sending Jacob Markstrom and forward Shawn Matthias to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for forward Steven Anthony and netminder Roberto Luongo. Moving Mathias for Anthony may have been thrown in to help complete the deal, as Mathias can provide the Canucks some scoring punch. Markstrom can be a solid backup and fill in nicely for Eddie Lack in the Canucks net. With Luongo going to Florida, he goes back to where his career took off. Luongo had been having problems with Canucks management, something that has been going on for a while now, and Vancouver felt it was the right time to make the move and unload Luongo. The Panthers also pulled the trigger on another big goalie trade, sending starting netminder Tim Thomas to the Dallas Stars in exchange for goalie Dan Ellis. Again another solid move by the Panthers, getting a solid backup in Ellis to play behind Luongo. With Thomas being traded, we know that Luongo will be the number one man in Florida. Also Dallas does benefit from adding Thomas to the lineup. He will more than likely be playing behind Kari Lehtonen in net, which will be a big help for the Stars in net as they try to make the post season.
Besides the netminders, we also saw some bigtime scoring stars get moved around at the deadline. The Anaheim Ducks traded Dustin Penner to the Washington Capitals from a 2014 4th round pick. Good move by the Capitals to add another scoring punch in Penner and not give up other than a pick to a loaded Ducks team. We saw the Edmonton Oilers trade Ales Hemsky to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for a 5th Round Pick in 2014 and a 3rd Round Pick in 2015. This helps try and boast a Senators offense, which at the moment is around 14th in the league in goals per game average. The Los Angeles Kings got a big boost to their offense as the picked up Marian Gaborik from the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for Matt Frattin, a 2nd Round Pick 2014 or 2015 and a Conditional 3rd Round Pick. this will really help the Kings out. even though the currently sit in a playoff spot, LA averages 2.32 goals per game which is 27th in the NHL so Gaborik will be a big boost when he's healthy.
The local Metro area teams made a few moves at the deadline. the New Jersey Devils picked up Tuomo Ruutu from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for Andrei Loktionov and a Conditional 3rd Round Pick in 2017. The New York Islanders made two moves. First they sent defenseman Andrew MacDonald to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for a 3rd Round Pick in 2014, a 2nd Round Pick in 2015 and forward Matt Mangene. not a bad move for MacDonald, would have liked to get a little bit more for him, but I'm not totally upset with the trade. The other trade the Islanders made got me a tad upset.The Islanders traded Thomas Vanek and a Conditional 5th Round Pick in 2014 to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for F Sebastien Collberg and a Conditional 2nd Round Pick in 2014. The Islanders dropped the ball so badly with this deal, as it seemed to be more of a last minute move by the Islanders. They hadn't made any noise early on deadline day with this trade and it feels like it was a way to dump him off. I would have really liked to see the Islanders pick up more for Vanek in the trade.
Finally the New York Rangers made a pair of moves. The Rangers picked up Raphael Diaz from the Vancouver Canucks for a 5th round pick in 2015. Solid move to help out the blue line. The biggest move made during the deadline the Rangers were able to pull off. They traded Ryan Callahan, a 1st Round Pick in 2015 and a Conditional 2nd Round Pick in 2014 to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Martin St. Louis. This was a big move for the short term for both teams. Tampa Bay gets two future draft pics to build their team with and get a solid defensive forward for their playoff push. Sure they lose one of, if not, their best player in St. Louis, but he wanted out of Tampa. There had been some kind of riff between St. Louis and GM Steve Yzerman. Some of it had to do with the St. Louis being left off Canada's olympic roster by Yzerman caused a riff, but I feel there's more to it than that. The Rangers benefit from the trade by adding a big time scoring punch in the form of St. Louis who can still put points on the board at 38 years old.
So there, in a nutshell, is what went down during the NHL Trade Deadline!
No comments:
Post a Comment