Now that the dust has settled on the trade deadline and Hell has officially frozen over, I figured I'd do my own official "Winners and Losers" analysis...
Winners:
Philadelphia Flyers - Holmgren's task was made easier by the fact that the Flyers were out of the play-off picture by December. This meant that auctioning off his attractive pending UFA assets was a no-brainer. That said, I think Homer did a bang-up job at acquiring quality return for said assets. He flipped a high risk rental player in Forsberg for a decent roster player (Upshall) a top-notch blueline prospect (Parent) and a first round pick.
The fresh new Flyers GM upped my respect for him even further shortly thereafter by turning Fred Meyer and a third round prospect into young up-and-comer and former first rounder Braydon Coburn. His decision to take on Zhitnik's bloated contract from the Islanders was a head-scratcher initially, but looks like a genius move in light of the fact he was able to swap him for Coburn. Slick.
Next, Holmgren managed to move struggling impending UFA Kyle Calder to Chicago for another young puck mover on the back-end, Lasse Kukkonen (and a 3rd round pick!). For those unfamiliar, Kukkonen is a smallish defenseman with some decent offensive skills. He was on pace to score 7 goals and 19 points in this his rookie season with a terrible Blackhawks squad. His +6 number is nothing to sneeze at either, considering the quality of his team this year.
To top it all off, Holmgren also landed #1 goaltender in waiting, Martin Biron, for a 2nd round pick. Another organizational fault addressed - one which the previous GM, Bobby Clarke, repeatedly failed at firming up during his entire tenure. All it cost the Flyers was a 2nd rounder thanks to Biron being in line for unrestricted free agency next year. The gamble here is a smart one however, since MB has been itching to be a go to guy for ages. Now the Flyers are giving him that chance. I'd bet anything he re-signs in Philly during the summer.
All told, the Flyers will be entering next season with a strong crop of young defensemen, which was previously an organizational weakness, and a competent goaltender (finally). In addition to Pitkanen, they now have Coburn, Parent and Kukkonen in the system. Not to mention the 2 first round picks (PHI, NSH) and 3 third round picks (PHI, NSH, VAN) they have in the '07 draft.
Good stuff. Now he just has to find a way to get rid of Esche and Hatcher...
St. Louis Blues - Another seller by default, the Blues flipped some old talent and re-stocked the cupboard. After harvesting a bunch of Carolina's future considerations a year earlier, the Blues managed to rape another SE play-off hopeful in Atlanta by dangling Keith Tkachuk. In exchange, the Thrashers sent over a 1st in '07, a 3rd in '07, a 2nd in '08 and a middling roster player in Glen Metropolit. Holy overpayment Batman! Tkachuk has all of 20 goals this season, has never won anything in the play-offs and is a year removed from being suspended at training camp for being grossly out of shape. And, oh yeah - he's UFA in the summer. No lube when it came to that deal.
St. Louis snagged another first rounder when they moved Guerin to the Sharks. They also received little known prospect Jay Barriball (?) and one of my personal favorite shit-disturbers, Ville Nieminen. This deal makes more sense from a Sharks perspective (relative to the Thrashers/Blues deal) because Guerin has played with Thornton before (rather successfully) and San Jose has more of a chance to make hay in the post-season.
(as an aside, how is it that the Skarks seemingly paid less for Guerin than the Thrashers did for Tkachuk? They're both UFA's next season and Guerin has 8 more goals so far this year)
Next, St. Louis flipped Dennis Wideman to Boston for Brad Boyes. While I think Wideman is an under-appreciated blueliner, it probably makes sense for the Blues to seek out young, skilled forwards since there is a marked paucity of quality forwards in the organization. The Blues have Jay McKee, Christian Backman, Eric Brewer, Bryce Salvador, Barrett Jackman and last year's #1 pick Eric Johnson on the back-end. Up front they have...uh...Doug Weight and Lee Stempniak and, er...Peter Cajanek. And now Brad Boyes (and Glen Metropolit/Ville Nieminen I suppose).
Altogether, the Blues walked away with a couple more roster players and a lot more draft picks. Next year, St. Louis has 7 or 8 picks in the first 4 rounds of the draft, including 3 first rounders, depending on a couple of conditions (Tkachuk re-signing in Atlanta I believe).
Whew. Look out for this team in a couple of years.
Washington Capitals - Another seller and another decent collection of returns. Flipping impending UFA Zednik for a 2nd rounder to NYI was pretty decent, mainly because the guy had managed all of 6 goals so far this year. Even Chris Clark has more than 20 on the Capitals. They also grabbed a 6th rounder in a deal with the Senators that included minor leaguers Lawrence Nicholat and Andy Hedlund. Next, The Caps garnered Buffalo's first round pick next year and decent up and comer Jiri Novotny for someone named "Helbling" and UFA to be Dainius Zubrus. They also managed to land a conditional pick in 08 from LA for Jamie Heward who was also going to bolt for the open skies come summer.
All told, Washington strengthened their position in the '07 draft significantly and now have 4 choices in the first 2 rounds (2 firsts, 2 seconds). They also added a big young, cheap centerman to the fold. Not too shabby at all.
Dallas Stars - Jockeying for position in the ever-tight Western Conference, the Stars managed to add a number of decent pieces in their bid to establish favorable play-off position.
First they claimed Ladislav Nagy from the Coyotes for 13th forward in Mathias Tjarnqvist and a 1st rounder. Nagy's a top-notch playmaker, though a little fragile, and should be a welcome addition to the goal-starved Dallas squad, assuming he remains healthy. Considering what other rentals went for at the deadline, seems like Dallas paid slightly below the going rate.
To replace Tjarnqvist (sort of) the Stars took Shane Endicott from Pittsburgh for "future considerations" (translation: a bag of pucks). Endicott is a big, strapping former 2nd round pick that actually put up decent numbers in the AHL last year, but has struggled with the big club this year. A good 0 risk/potential reward kind of deal.
Finally, Dallas buttressed an already strong back-end by engaging in a complicated deal that saw them get the Kings captain Mattias Norstrom. The cost was another first rounder (in 2008) as well as a somewhat competent blueliner of their own in Jaroslav Modry. In addition, the trade included 2 other Stars draft choices (2nd and 3rd in '07) and a minor leaguer named "Fransson" for the King's 3rd and 4th choices in the same year plus Konstantin Pushkarev. While that sounds like a lot, the difference between the Kings 3rd rounder and Stars 4th rounder, for instance, will probably be negligible considering the two teams draft positions. Further, the Stars most certainly got the 2 better actual players in the deal to boot. Norstrom will be able to do some of the heavy lifting during the play-offs, no doubt freeing up guys like Boucher and Zubov to concentrate more on PP duties. The 2008 first rounder might come back to haunt them if Turco shits the bed again come May, but that remains to be seen.
San Jose Sharks - By adding Rivet and Guerin at the deadline, San Jose addressed a need (experienced blueliner) and augmented a strength (offensive prowess). The cost for both was somewhat heavy (Gorges, 2 first round choices in '07 - their own+the Devils), but it's hard to blame them for trying to hit a home run this year. If Guerin becomes even more deadly on Thornton's wing (hard not to) and Rivet helps shore up a young blueline, the Sharks could be real contenders in the post-season.
Losers:
Atlanta Thrashers - Waddell was obviously in full-on panic mode. He grossly overpaid for just about every move he made. Firstly, swapping Coburn for Zhitnik is quite frankly a ridiculous move. Zhitnik is 34 and hasn't scored more than 5 goals since the 97/98 season. He's neither a dependable defensive stalwart nor an offensive threat these days. And the fact that he's going to cost Atlanta $2.7 Mm and $2.9Mm for the next 2 seasons is an added detriment. Terrible.
Course, it didn't stop there. The aforementioned overpayment for Keith Tkachuk should also be gag-inducing for Thrashers fans. Sure, they've needed a top line center for a long time, but 34 year-old never-do-well Keith Tkachuk? Hell, adding Yanic Perreault and Dainius Zubrus would have injected twice the amount of goals into the line-up and would have cost less than Tkachuk alone (in theory). Brutal.
Next, Waddell claimed the consistently mediocre Pascal Dupuis from the Rangers for last year's 16th overall pick Alex Bourrett. That's right - the Rangers got Dupuis from the Wild for 4th liner Adam Hall while the Thrashers got him from the Rangers for a top-notch prospect and former 1st round pick! And those two deals were made 3 weeks apart, so it's not like Dupuis suddenly improved. In-fucking-credible.
I also didn't think much of Belanger for Vishnevski trade, but that's way down on the crap-pile now...
I understand that Waddell basically has to make the play-offs this season in order to completely stave off fan apathy down in Atlanta. But, necessity shouldn't equate to complete stupidity like this. He surrendered a lot of good for a lot of mediocre. His club will paying for this orgy of inpetitude for years to come.
Phoenix Coyotes - So Barnett trades Georges Laraque - a relatively cheap forward whom he gave a 2 year contract to in the summer and a NTC - for a bag of pucks, but keeps pending UFA's Roenick, Nolan and Kevyn Adams? Why didn't he deal Curtis Joseph for that matter? Surely a contender like Buffalo, who is suddenly lacking a competent back-up, would have offered up something for him? He also dealt his top +/- player in Oleg Saprykin for a 2nd rounder in a weak draft year - despite the fact that Sappy is merely a RFA (rather than UFA) next season. At this point, one would think that Saprykin, as crappy as he is, is more valuable to the Phoenix organization than a single, 2nd round pick. Course, "one would think" is the operative phrase here.
Phoenix did manage to get some return for Ladislav Nagy, although Tjarnqvist+a first seems somewhat paltry considering what the Blues got for Guerin and Tkachuk and Washington what got for Zubrus. Barnett also rid the Coyotes of UFA to be Perrault, albeit for little more than a potential 4th line forward a 3rd round draft pick. Clearly he never offered him to Waddell.
While other sellers were getting the job done at the deadline, there's Barnett, bumbling along in that perpetually confused daze of his. How can Gretz stand around and watch this guy guide the Coyotes into the ground like this?
Montreal Canadiens - Didn't really do anything of note besides deal Rivet. Gorges and a first was a good return for him, but one wonders if Gainey simply couldn't make up his mind on whether to be a buyer or a seller. Montreal didn't get any of the grit or centerman skill they clearly need, didn't really shore up their starting goaltender situation for the play-off push and also failed to deal some of their big-ticket impending free agents (Souray, Markov, Niinimaa, Bonk, Johnson). Lots of waffling, not enough action here. I suspect the Islanders (who decided they WERE going to take a strong run for the play-offs and made moves accordingly) will overtake the Canadiens for a play-off spot in the East and Montreal will be left scrambling to re-sign many of the above UFA's in the offseason. Likely to no avail.
Edmonton Oilers - Whether dealing Smyth was a mistake or not remains to be seen. The return package for him was decent, if not spectacular. The fact that not a lot of superstars seem to want to sign in Edmonton should have given Lowe pause, but if he does manage to land a big UFA in the summer with the resultant cap space, good on him. Im not sure anyone he gets will be able to replace some of the intangibles Smyth brought to the table for the Oil (and perhaps, for the Oil alone), not to mention the potential fan backlash that may ensue. But, again, we shall see.
What the Smyth deal did say for certain was that the Oilers were sellers on the deadline. I think. Lowe managed to trade Smyth but forgot that the likes of Nedved, Sykora, Peterson, Tjarnqvist and Hejda (all potential UFAs) still litter his roster. Surely a couple of these guys could have garnered some kind of return? Pascal Dupius landed a former first round draft pick for frick sake!
What a disaster of a season for the Oiler faithful. The lack of return on the Pronger deal, the resultant gaping hole on the back-end, the overly fat contracts for the likes of Pisani and Roloson, the unceremonious dumping of Smyth and the overall pooch screwing at the deadline by Lowe. And don't forget missing the play-offs. What a lot of bitter pills to swallow.
Anaheim Ducks - Not that they really need to add a whole lot, but, really, Brad May? Really? Why bother Burke? Hell, your team already leads the league in fighting majors; whats the point in adding another puglist?
I'm surprised some experienced, secondary scoring talent wasn't brought in as an insurance policy against all the youngsters tanking it in the play-offs. I guess with idiots like Waddell running around overpaying for everything that may have been hard to come by, however.
The Just-Plain-Strange:
Boston Bruins - Can anyone tell me what Boston was doing on Wednesday? Having already sold off their centerpiece Brad Stuart to the Flames a couple weeks ago, Boston engaged in what James Mirtle appropriately dubbed "shuffling deck chairs". Aaron Ward for Paul Mara? Why? Sure, Mara was having a blah season - but he's young(er), has good pedigree, is big, strong and a few good seasons behind him and was signed through 08. Why not see how he does next year? Ward is older, not as offensive and is all of $250,000 cheaper. This deal just doesn't make any sense to me at all.
The Bruins also swapped Boyes for Wideman - another defenseman. Boyes was also having a tough season, but had turned it on recently. He too was signed till the end of the '08 for a relatively slim $1.8 Mm. No doubt another bounce back season the Beantowners will miss out on...for no good reason at all. Add in the fact that they had some UFAs they didn't bother to deal (Tenkrat, York, Hoggan, Reich) and Im not sure what Chiarelli's plan was here...
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A lot of the other deals were either too minor to matter or too ambiguous to judge. For example, the Flames trade for Stuart and Primeau will be great if they go far in the pay-offs and/or Stuart re-signs in the offseason and a disaster if they bow out early and have nothing to show for their troubles come summer. The above winners and losers seemed much more clear cut to me, thus their inclusion. Learned Commenters, please feel free to oppose, deny or point out a glaring omission.
