Canucks on Deadline Day

Well, my cries for "anything" came to fruition, as the Canucks found a few proverbial dance partners on Deadline Day and did a fair amount of dancing. A goaltender from the East, a defenseman from the East, two defensemen from the West and we shipped on defenseman to Atlanta... not to mention a few draft picks and a couple prospects leaving the organization. All in all, I would say that this is pretty good day for the Canucks.

Now, I can't say that the Canucks made waves in the hockey pool, but that really wasn't my concern today. My concern for the Canucks was to sure-up their back end, making themselves more reliable in their own end... which they did.

The addition of Keith Carney, Eric Weinrich and Sean Brown gives the Canucks three, count them, three experienced, reliable defensemen. Sure, they don't have a great offensive upside, but that's not what the Canucks needed. They need this type of player to make the correct first pass out of the zone, organize the penalty kill and keep the opposition away from Alex Auld. This will work... and it'll look even better when Ohlund, Jovanovski and Salo come back. The Canucks blueline will then rank amongst the best in the league.

To help out Alex Auld, the Canucks also picked up Mika Noronen from the Sabres. Now, I don't know who these people are, but there are some people in this hockey world who are looking for a Kiprusoff miracle from Noronen. I am not one of these people. I am, however, confident that Noronen will make for a finer, more reliable back-up for the team and Auld as the starter. Noronen, has done his time as a makeshift starter in Buffalo, so he can be relied upon to take on 10 to 12 games at a time... but he isn't in any way a proven backstop. Especially not in the playoffs. Saying that though, neither was Kiprusoff... but I am yet to make the miracle prediction. If that is the case... then woo wee, did we ever make a steal. But until then, it's a solid move that cost us a draft pick that we probably weren't gonna make good on anyways.

On the way out though is Steve McCarthy. I had some pretty high hopes for him back when he was drafted and was as hopeful for him when he signed on with the Canucks in the offseason. Unfortunately, he didn't pan out the way the team (or myself for that matter) wanted for him and he made his way out to Atlanta for a crummy draft pick.

The only problem with dealing McCarthy at the moment is that... well, we have a game against Nashville tonight. My fingers are crossed that one of our new defensemen can show up in time to lace 'em up. Any one of them would do... more than likely Carney, coming from Anaheim. Just want to make sure that we have enough guys to play tonight as we need to pick up some more points to catch up to Calgary.

Nashville on the other hand picked up Brendan Witt today... but they didn't lose anyone to get him. Not from the everyday roster anyways. Allegedly, the Predators are injury-riddled and all, but they still looked pretty damn good against the Flames on Tuesday night.

If I was to compare other teams in the Northwest, the argument is pending that the Oilers made the next biggest jump in the division. They sured up their goaltending situation with the pick-up of Dwayne Roloson, while picking up some more offensive boost in Sergei Samsonov. The Oilers were in need of both pieces of the puzzle they picked up and they did give up a lot of futures to get it, but it does make them a worthy contender, whilst making the eighth and final playoff spot harder for the rest of the teams to win now.

The Avalanche almost seemed to have made a step backwards in the Northwest, although they do seem to have enough to get them where they need to be in 6 weeks time... the playoffs. The goaltending swap, sending a healthy Aebischer to the Canadiens for an injured Theodore makes me scratch my head and wonder what they are trying to accomplish. But when Theodore is healthy, which may only be a couple of weeks away, he could be a very dangerous commodity for the Avs come the Cup run. Unfortunately, they received some bad news that Marek Svatos will be lost to them for the remainder of the season, which takes away quite a bit of scoring. The acquisition of Jim Dowd from Chicago will not be enough to fill that gap today.

The Wild didn't go too nuts this time around... from the outside looking in on the playoffs, fifth in the Northwest, two games above .500, the Wild ended up being more of a selling team than a buying team. With Roloson being shipped off for a first-rounder, Willie Mitchell dealt to the Stars and Alexandre Daigle being waived... it was time to think about next season instead of fighting too hard to crack through the concrete wall. Manny Fernandez and Marian Gaborik will be relied upon to make a good show through the rest of the year and maybe considered a pretty big spoiler to teams who want to make it in.

Finally, we come to the lowly Flames... okay, not lowly. The Flames only picked up centre Jamie Lundmark from the Coyotes. An underachieving youngster who had tremendous potential and has yet to really live up to any of it. Don't get me wrong, I really have liked Lundmark through the years, I had him in one of my pool teams a couple years ago. He did nothing, but I had some faith in him at one time to actually pick him. The Flames didn't need to make much for trades... they lead the division without any major scoring punches, so actually sacrificing a lot to pick up something they didn't need seemed a little over the top. Unlike their divisional bretheren, the Flames were good before the deadline and remained relatively the same through the passing of the 3pm ET deadline and they'll continue to fight the good fight for the last few weeks of the season.

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