THE TRADE!

Yes, the trade has arrived. How would I describe it? Anti-Climactic. I read in the morning that Darren Dreger reported that it was a "two-horse race" between SJS and CHI. So I thought: "Great. We can run the price up, and get the best deal possible. Not so, say the Hockey Gods, not so.

Instead we get Jonathan Cheecho, Milan Michalek, and a 2nd Rounder in exchange for CryBaby and a 5th Rounder.

Am I Satisfied? Yes.
Am I happy? No.

First let me get out why I'm unhappy. I am unhappy because Dany Heatley, a man who wore an A on his Jersey to represent his leadership, basically held his organization hostage for an entire summer. Handcuffing them from making any deals of depth (See the signing of Mike Comrie with the Oilers.) I'm upset because as a hostage taking terrorist, in the end his demands were met. He vetoed a BETTER trade for the organization because it didn't fall into the list of his demands. He should have no right to do that. The NHL should seriously look at the articulation of No trade/movement clauses. If a player submits a written demand to be traded, the clause should become null and void; those clauses exist so that the team can't deal a player who has decided to make a long-term commitment. It's kind of an insurance policy. When that commitment is revoked, so should the commitment insurance policy. That only makes sense in my eyes. So I'm unhappy, mainly because a self-righteous, self-absorbed, millionaire got his wish at the beheast of an entire organization and it's fans.

The trade.

I don't know yet, I won't lie. My first instinct was. Oh Frack! What a bad deal. Reports I'm reading was that in meetings Heatley was not willing to compromise, so the organization decided to take a sub-par deal just to get him out of their hair. I'm still unsure.

Here's my break down.

Michalek is a solid Winger. In a word, Consistancy. He is consistant, in overall production. Streaky at time sin the season. But in the last three seasons, he has put between 50 and 60 pts. At 24, his best years are yet to come and he's locked down for 4 years at the going rate for a 60 pt man. So, good pickup there.

Cheechoo is the dark horse in this deal. Maybe a change of scenery will help him out. I remember him potting 50+ goals that one season he really clicked with Jumbo Joe. Now, can he click with our playmakers? He just seems like he likes to pick and chose when he wants to score. If this deal is gonna work out for us, this guy has got to bury the passes Spezza gives him. If he doesn't we should look into buying him out. Definitely not worth his cap hit, unless he becomes a 50 goal man again... which i doubt!

Can't fault Murray here. It's a situation where you can hold out, have a poisonous player in the dressing room and hope that his trade value goes up. If you dot hat, however, you risk haveing a rocky first halfof the season, not to mention the players wondering all year if they are gonna be apckaged in with Heatley whenever he gets shipped. Instead, Murray takes a lesser deal, ships the primadona out west and starts a season free of distractions.

So how do our lines look now? Interesting question. Let's see.

Cheechoo - Spezza - Alfie
Michalek - Fisher - Kovalev
Ruttu - Bass - Neil
Foligno - Kelly/Shannon - Winchester/Smith/Regin

Phillips - Volchenkov
Kuba - Campoli
Lee - Picard/Karlsson

Leclaire
Eliott

*note* Michalek is a better winger, but I feel like you need Cheechoo to play with Spezza for him to work.

Not too bad. Not good. but not Bad.