Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Flames grab exactly what the Habs needed

First it was Jordan Leopold, now it's Olli Jokinen.

Not sure if Bob Gainey had the type of player that would have interested the Coyotes, but to me, Matthew Lombardi, Brandon Prust and a first rounder is not that huge of a price to pay for player of Jokinen's calibre.

Is Gainey in on another big centre? Nik Antropov maybe? No one except Gainey and his inner circle knows.

The one piece of good news so far on deadline is that none of the eastern teams have improved at all, unless you consider Mikael Tellqvist going to Buffalo as being a big improvement. There's still two hours left, but the list of impact players available is dwindling and I have to believe Calgary's moves so far is going to push other western teams to try to match.

3 comments:

Arjun said...

Boston has improved though slightly. Recchi is handy. Montador is a decent defenceman. So they're better but mildly so. Having said that, I don't think we can beat them. I think we can beat Philly and Washington but not New Jersey or Boston. So what do we need to beat them? Yes, what Calgary just got, I know.

TK said...

I hat seeing the teams in our conference getting better. Boston, NYR, Pittsburgh, maybe even Philly, improved their lineups.

I think Gainey was a little handcuffed by a lack of Cap room, to a degree. I think that room would have to be made to land Jokinen (although I don't know that for sure).

I am hoping some of the players whose names have been tossed around in trade rumours can now concentrate on hockey. This home stretch is always an exciting part of the year!

Arpon Basu said...

Yes, he would have needed to create cap room to grab Jokinen, but it could have been done it the will was there. Gainey did't seem to be interested.