Tomorrow's the big day and the hockey blogosphere is aflutter with anticipation. Following is just a small sampling of some of the good stuff out there.
- My new SBN overlords have a nifty little Trade deadline hub which will aggregate all the deadline stories in the SBN universe as they appear. My Flames coverage tomorrow will appear there, while I will stick my general comments in this space.
I believe Flames Nation and Oilers Nation will be gearing up there coverage as well.
- Matt discusses the deadlines potential winners and losers.
- Lowetide looks at 10 questions facing the Oilers heading into tomorrow.
- Puck Daddy wonders if Pronger is headed back to St. Louis. I've never really understood all this "Pronger is available" talk given that he's signed to a decent contract through next season. Wyshynski rationalizes it thusly;
...Dumping salary can be more vital than holding the line on them. The Ducks have a summer of unprecedented potential player turnover ahead of them, and shedding the final year of Pronger for younger players and picks would help with the flexibility.
But I don't really buy that myself. Hell, the Ducks just added a small portion of salary via the Kunitz deal, plus they have over $7M needlessly invested in the crease (meaning they are much more "cutable" costs elsewhere). If anything, the Ducks should be looking to keep Pronger given their high potential turn-over, his at-or-below value contract and the fact that plugging the resultant hole he would leave in the roster would be a monumental task.
- Peripherally related, Kevin over at Barry Melrose Rocks takes James Duthie to task for dusting off the old "bloggers are loners in their mothers basement! So their (trade) discussions are worthless!" thing. I wonder how long this baseless smear will stick around? While I know a lot of bloggers that speculate on potential trades and such, there's only one that is famous for pulling stuff out of his ass and calling it a "rumor" (no link for him...you all know who Im talking about).
- Earl Sleek gives us an in-depth run-down of the Ducks situation. Only Montreal is close in terms of pending free agents, so this is likely to be one hell of an interesting deadline for Anaheim fans, especially since the club is battling for it's play-off life currently. His conclusion? Everyone is staying.
- Finally, Jaspers Rink take a long look at the Capitals prospects for moving...uh...prospects for some help.
Update - things are already getting interesting. Flames have plucked Nycholat off of waivers (meh), while Pittsburgh has dropped Miro Satan into the waiver pool. I know the dude's been a disappointment relative to expectations this season, but he hasn't exactly been useless. He's on pace to score more than 20 goals and his ES stats aren't exactly terrible. They aren't good, but they aren't terrible.
Is he a player of interest for Calgary? Could he shore up the forward depth with Bourque et al injured, or would he just be another "Bertuzzi" needing shelter in the top 6?
Whether the Flames are interested or not, I can't see Satan lasting the day on waivers.
- Also: check out the Forechecker's Mysterious NHL rumor Generator. Great stuff.
