Time to Question the Penguins

I look at the deal from the Penguins side of the table and I do begin to wonder a little bit... is a top six forward worth the same as a top two defenseman? Sure, Chris Kunitz does bring some offensive intangibles that Ryan Whitney doesn't, but Whitney sure brings a lot more to the table from a defensive side of things, not to mention a great shot from the point.

I mean, Kunitz has had some good numbers, but he has been playing with a duo with awesome chemistry in Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, which has to mean good things, right? Kunitz may have been over-valued in this deal, unless Eric Tangradi, the prospect that they acquired with Kunitz, does bring a ton to the table. Nevertheless, they have added a good forward to play with their top centres and he's signed on for a while as well.

Come the 2009/'10 season, the Penguins do have a good number of players signed, including three top-flight centres, a number one defender and a number one goalie. These players do come at a costly price, at a $45.8 million cap hit for 14 signed players. That does leave enough room for 8 depth players to be signed on through the off-season, but it doesn't leave themselves much more than that.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Evgeni Malkin	Sergei Gonchar	Marc-Andre Fleury
Sidney Crosby	Kristopher Letang
Chris Kunitz	Brooks Orpik
Jordan Staal	Mark Eaton
Matt Cooke
Tyler Kennedy
Pascal Dupuis
Max Talbot
Eric Godard

The Penguins have one key restricted free agent to look after this summer and that's Alex Goligoski, who has now come to the end of his entry-level deal. If he is to get a lot of minutes next season, his agent will likely look for a reasonable market price for Goligoski or he could be the subject to an offer sheet or two by another team. Doesn't that sound awfully intriguing.

The UFA crop out of Pittsburgh is rather aged, but still has some game left in them. Petr Sykora (32), Miroslav Satan (34), Ruslan Fedotenko (30), Rob Scuderi (30), Mathieu Garon (31) and Phillipe Boucher (36) may have new addresses by next October, because this sort of depth will come at a cost that Pittsburgh won't be able to afford.

I think we'll see yet another variant of the Penguins team that made the Cup Finals a year ago, but improvement may not be in the works for them. They are not in a playoff position right now and having the two top scorers in the league isn't helping them win games. Depth is where teams are really making their mark nowadays and if you don't have quality, hard-working depth at a reasonable cost, a lot of teams will fail to make their mark in the Standings. The Sharks, Bruins and Red Wings are all good examples of cost-effective depth teams.

Ducks to Fly High

The acquisition of Ryan Whitney today adds an interesting piece to the puzzle in Anaheim, while the exclusion of Chris Kunitz makes some more room up front for Bobby Ryan to flourish. Whitney and Ryan are both signed up for next season and they are both poised to make an impact, depending on what the team does with all of it's free space this summer.

The Ducks currently only have 10 players (see below) on this season's current roster that are locks to suit up for them in 2010 and even one or two of those have been rumoured to be expendable. The current 10 players are worth $34.3 million against the cap, but they could be ready to shift another player to make their position heading into the free agent frenzy in July, all the more exciting.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Ryan Getzlaf	Chris Pronger	J-S Giguere
Corey Perry	Ryan Whitney	Jonas Hiller
Bobby Ryan
Teemu Selanne
George Parros
Ryan Carter

The Ducks go into the trade deadline in the playoff hunt, currently tied in points with the 7th place Wild and 8th place Stars, but sit in 10th due to the tie-breakers. You can't count the Ducks out quite yet. However, the team has 10 key players who are going to become UFA's in July and it is fun to speculate who may or may not go before March 4th. Of course, you don't have to be a UFA to be considered, just ask Chris Pronger, who's head has been on the chopping block for a while now, thanks to his huge contract. Even with the way that Jonas Hiller has been playing of late, J-S Giguere might be feeling someone standing in behind him, watching him intently.

The Ducks have a great core of young players signed on up front and the addition of Ryan Whitney to the back-end has now built themselves a very reliable source of offense for a few years to come. That has to be exciting for the Ducks. I am curious to see how they build around it this summer and who they end up re-signing to make up some of those gaps.

If Pronger goes for prospects and/or picks, that would leave the Ducks cap hit for next season down to $28+ million, which is a great lump of clay to work with, especially with Getzlaf, Perry & Whitney in tow... not to mention Selanne. If somehow, they can get some reasonable value out of the Pronger deal for active roster players, they could arguably be in the running for best position possible heading into the summer.

Ducks Acquire Whitney

Well, we could have ourselves our next biggest trade of the season here and it looks like a pretty good deal for both teams on the surface. The Penguins have moved one of their prized young defenseman to Anaheim for a quality winger and a prospect forward. At first glance (see below), this deal is of great quality and it could really pave the way for one of the bigger defensemen to be lifted from the Anaheim organization in another deal.

			2008-2009 Statistics		2009	2010
To Anaheim	Position	Age	GP/MIN	Points	Cap Hit	Cap Hit
Ryan Whitney	D	26	28	13	$4 million	$4 million
			2008-2009 Statistics		2009	2010
To Pittsburgh	Position	Age	GP/MIN	Points	Cap Hit	Cap Hit
Chris Kunitz	F	29	62	34	$3.725 million	$3.725 million
Eric Tangradi	D	20	0	0	N/A	UD

From a pure capology perspective, both teams pretty well leveled off their cap hits with this move, as the Penguins may have hired themselves some new help for their talented centres by acquiring Kunitz. Like I mentioned before, the Ducks have now acquired a younger premier defenseman, which should be more than enough reason to move Chris Pronger or Scott Niedermayer (both of whom are featured prominently in trade rumours). This could be the domino that starts a lot of movement in the next six days.

Quickly, from the pool perspective... Ryan Whitney has had some success for Grant since coming back from injury and will now move to a different sort of system in the West, where he'll be used in a good puck moving position from the back end. Depending on which (if any) of the big two defenders move, he'll get to play with some more great talent, like he did with Sergei Gonchar in Pittsburgh. Chris Kunitz, on the other hand, will likely get some great minutes with either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin (possibly time with Jordan Staal) and his nose for the net should help those centres out significantly. Kunitz is a pick of Wes' in the Draft, which may help him significantly.

Hossa Leaves Game

The Detroit Red Wings certainly did enough to close the gap on the top of the Western Conference by beating the Sharks at home last night, 4-1. The Red Wings did close the gap to 3 points at the top, but the Sharks still have a couple games in hand for which they can open the gap back up to 7. Nevertheless, the news is a little more dire than that in Hockeytown, as Marian Hossa, one of the goal scorers last night for the Red Wings, left the game with "concussion-like symptoms" and did not return to the game. As soon as someone throws out the 'c' word (the sports related one), there will be an awfully close eye put upon that team and player to make sure they follow procedure.

If the diagnosis is exactly that, a concussion, this will mean that Hossa will be out for at least the next week, in accordance with the concussion standards in the NHL. Of course, with just over six weeks left in the season to go, the Red Wings could ill afford to have Hossa out for a long period of time, especially since they are already without Tomas Holmstrom.

In the Draft, Hossa is held by John P., who currently sits in 8th place, 20 points out of the money. Hossa has been a good part of his team and a certain contributor to his successes this season and the loss of him for any extended period of time will seriously hinder his chances of cracking the money this season.

Click here to see an updated injury page.

Penguins Without Crosby & Whitney

The Penguins will not have the services of both Sidney Crosby and Ryan Whitney for their game against the Islanders on Wednesday night. Crosby, a Draft pick of Chris', will be sitting out this game with a groin injury, which has been giving him problems since Sunday. Crosby has tried skating on his injured groin, but has had to leave practice sessions early. Whitney, a Draft pick of Grant's, will be missing the game for personal reasons, which likely won't keep him out of the line-up for long.

Kristopher Letang should figure back into the line-up for Whitney tonight, while the Penguins also called up Janne Pesonen to fill in for Crosby.

Click here to see an updated injury page.

What the Panthers Have

The Panthers are in the middle of the trade wind storm that is blowing through the NHL, now a week before the trade deadline and I was awfully curious to see how the team is looking for next season, now that we're talking about seeing Jay Bouwmeester head out the door.

As of Wednesday morning, the Panthers sit tightly in seventh spot in the East, well in the mix for the playoffs, tied with Buffalo with 68 points this year, one point up on ninth and one point behind the Rangers in sixth. The results of these games can really sway the standings these days and a trade would have to be rather beneficial to the Panthers before they consider to move Bouwmeester.

Now, you have to believe that Bouwmeester will not be in a Panthers uniform next season, which should beg the question, how do the Panthers look heading into the summer, right now? Well, let me show you.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Stephen Weiss	Bryan McCabe	Tomas Vokoun
Nathan Horton	Keith Ballard
Cory Stillman	Bryan Allen
Michael Frolik
Gregory Campbell
Kamil Kreps
Brett McLean
Rostislav Olesz
Nick Tarnasky
Shawn Matthias
Wade Belak

The team does have a good base of players sitting with a contract already, 15 to be exact, and they come at a fairly reasonable cost, $38.1 million against the cap. They have plenty of cap space available to them going into the summer.

First things first, they will have to run down some of their better restricted free agents, like David Booth and Anthony Stewart. Next, there will have to be some decisions made for some of their other unrestricted free agents that may not have gotten away at the deadline, like Craig Anderson, Radek Dvorak, Richard Zednik and Nick Boynton. There is a good chance that the team will have to spend some money this next year to keep themselves in the hunt, but there is an even better chance that they'll have enough room for a decent payroll.

Canes to Condition Sutter

According to theahl.com this morning, the Hurricanes have decided to demote Box 25 forward, Brandon Sutter, to Albany of the AHL for a couple of weeks for some conditioning. Sutter has been a healthy scratch of late for Carolina, likely still getting used to the rigors of the big league game. The Hurricanes only sit one point out of 8th place in the East, so they are likely looking forward to a refreshed Sutter to help them out for the last few weeks of the season push.

This season, Sutter has 6 points in 50 games for the Hurricanes, playing some solid minutes on the third and fourth lines. Sutter is considered to be more of an defensive forward, in the classic mould of the Sutter boys. His fantasy value is quite low right now.

Click here to see an updated injury page.

Rangers Claim Bell from Toronto

According to Andy at HockeyBuzz.com, it looks like Mark Bell has been claimed off of re-entry waivers by the Rangers, from the Maple Leafs. Bell, a Box 24 forward in the Sheet pool, has been toiling with the Marlies in the AHL this season. In 56 games with the Marlies, Bell has 12 goals and 15 assists.

Bell had signed a fair-sized deal a while ago, that gave him a salary cap hit of $2.167 million, if he had stayed up with the Leafs (or the Sharks at the time), but since he was in the minors, his cap hit didn't count. Now that he has been picked up on re-entry waivers, the Leafs are on the hook for half of the remaining salary and cap hit, while he is playing in New York.

The addition of Bell to the line-up this year, may pave the way for some of those rumoured deals that have been circulating around the Rangers, which does pose some serious interest within this blog, at least.

Brodeur to Return

Well, according to a blogger on one of my favourite sites, it reads that Martin Brodeur has been activated from the Injured Reserve for tonight's game at home to the Avalanche. Brodeur has been out since the middle of November with a torn bicep muscle and tendons and has already been practicing with the club this week. It looks as though he is ready to resume his season, in which he has already registered 6 wins and 2 shutouts.

In the Week Eighteen Waiver Draft, Dennis decided to take a chance on the future Hall of Fame goaltender to help him out of the basement in the Draft and now it looks like he'll be right on the money. In the Week Nine Waiver Draft, Brodeur was dropped by Peter, who was wise to do so, since Brodeur hadn't come back until now, Week Twenty-Two.

Scott Clemmensen, who has been playing in Brodeur's absence, taken by Grant in the second Waiver Draft, was sent down to the AHL to make room for Brodeur, leaving Kevin Weekes to back up Brodeur down the stretch. This move may seal the deal for Grant, who already sits a ways back in last place to be there for the rest of the year.

Click here to see an updated injury page.

Wednesday Morning Notes

I don't know about you, but I'm finding that there are s lot of personal reasons floating around for players to miss games these days. Last night, it was Travis Moen who sat out of the Ducks' game against the Sabres in Buffalo. The Ducks go again in Boston on Thursday night and there is no word as to whether or not Moen will be able to make it on time for the game. Don't be surprised if the Box 8 forward doesn't quite make it.

The Blue Jackets decided on scratching Box 12 defenseman, Christian Backman, on Tuesday night against the Flames in Calgary. Backman has been somewhat of a regular scratch this season for Columbus, showing up more and more as the season winds down. In 51 games, the veteran defender has only 2 goals and 5 assists for the Jackets, which is far from what was expected of him when he was acquired in the off-season.

The Blackhawks are not hopeful that they will get Cam Barker back into their line-up any time soon. Barker left a game on the weekend after blocking a shot with his leg and the coaching staff has indicated that he will be out indefinitely for the time being. The Waiver Draft pick of John P.'s has been good since being picked up in Week Eighteen, picking up a goal and 6 assists in 11 games.

In Minnesota, the Wild have caught a bad break... Owen Nolan's toe. Nolan, a Box 7 forward, was one of the Wild's hottest players of late, but ended up taking a puck off the toe in their game against Chicago on Sunday, which led to the broken toe. His current status is out indefinitely and will likely be re-evaluated in the next few weeks before any sort of return. The Wild were without his services last night against the Kings, in a 2-1 shootout loss.

The Predators have learned that they will be without the services of Radek Bonk for the next few weeks, as he has suffered an upper body injury. The Box 5 forward has suffered offensively this season, having only 20 points in 56 games this year. He hasn't been the best prospect for your pool team this season, unless you picked him up really, really late. Bonk should be dropped, likely not to be picked up again this year, as the Predators have been getting offense elsewhere.

It's been a yo-yo season for Lasse Kukkonen, a Box 29 defenseman, as he was recalled from the minors yesterday, only to be a healthy scratch for the Flyers' game against the Capitals on Tuesday night. Since Kimmo Timonen was out with the flu, the team needed some extra insurance to make sure they could field a full unit against the high-powered Capitals team, but it turned out Kukkonen wasn't part of those playing plans.

It's been a little while since Keith Yandle was up in the press box, see the Week Fifteen Newsletter for the last time it was mentioned, but he has now managed to be sat for the past couple games, Saturday in Los Angeles and then again in St. Louis on Tuesday night. The Jeremy Waiver Draft pick has had a good string of games, with some decent results as well. It doesn't seem far-fetched to think that they young defender needed a rest or the team wanted to give David Hale another good shake at it.

The Lightning will be without Box 14 defender, Lukas Krajicek, for an undetermined amount of time, due to a hip flexor injury. Krajicek has also spent some time on the shelf due to an upper body injury earlier in the year, but for the most part, has been a pretty steady mainstay on the blueline for the flailing Lightning. In 52 games, Krajicek has only managed 1 goal and 10 assists between Tampa Bay and Vancouver.

Click here to see an updated injury page.

Habs to Shop

The Canadiens are also finding themselves with quite a bit of freedom, which may allow them to do some fantastic moves in the off-season to re-calibrate their team. They also find themselves with plenty of unrestricted free agents coming through this summer, including Alexei Kovalev, Robert, Lang, Saku Koivu, Alex Tanguay, Mathieu Schneider, Tom Kostopoulos, Patrice Brisebois and Mike Komisarek.

The team also has a number of restricted free agents, which could even be considered trade bait, if they wanted to completely renovate the team. Tomas Plekanec, Guy Latendresse, Matt D'Agostini, Chris Higgins and Kyle Chipchura all come to mind. Where do you focus first?

Let's have a quick peek of what they do have signed then, shall we?

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Andrei Kostitsyn	Andrei Markov	Carey Price
Sergei Kostitsyn	Roman Hamrlik	Jaroslav Halak
Maxim Lapierre	Josh Gorges
Georges Laraque	Ryan O'Byrne

Above, you'll see some good pieces to the final puzzle, in goal (which has been shaky this year, granted) and on the blueline, but the forwards need to be built solid. This group of 10 players does only have a cap hit of $22.5 million, which is the lowest total among all NHL teams for signed roster players for next season. This is why they can be big buyers this off-season... maybe to even buy a bit this deadline. Good news for Habs fans.

Rangers Really Buying?

Also along the same lines as the Islanders post below, I thought that a quick look at the Rangers and their possible team next season would be somewhat interesting. In a huge contrast to their State rivals, the Rangers have very few players under contract for 2009/'10 for a hindering $40.2 million against the cap. Since we assume that the cap number isn't going to change much (or at all), this won't be good news for the capologist in Manhattan.

From this season heading into next, there are four good forwards available (no more after that), a good top four defensemen and an elite goalie. That's all they have. There would have to be a strong presence of players from the Hartford Wolf Pack or other young prospects coming up the ranks to fill in those open gaps, which there are a lot of.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Scott Gomez	Michal Rozsival	Henrik Lundqvist
Chris Drury	Wade Redden
Markus Naslund	Dan Girardi
Aaron Voros	Marc Staal

If the Rangers are somehow in play for Jay Bouwmeester or Vincent Lecavalier, two of the highest priced names in the rumour mill, there would almost have to be a straight salary swap to ensure that this happens in their favour. Lecavalier for Gomez & Roszival would have to be swung, in order for them to drop $4 million for next season and signing Bouwmeester would likely equate to something close. Maybe somehow suggest a straight swap of Bouwmeester for Redden and that would be an equal burden swap... possibly sending a Ryan Callahan the same way for a pick to round out the deal as a cost-cutting measure.

The Curious Islanders Case

I thought to keep myself a bit busy on this Tuesday, I would update my salary cap hit numbers on my own database and see if anything interesting had come up. The Islanders were awfully curious to me, as they had a core of players, 15 of the current roster (plus injuries), that would be considered signed and ready for 2009/'10 and they have a minimal salary cap hit of $26.6 million in total. How amazing is that?

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Trent Hunter	Mark Streit	Rick DiPietro
Richard Park	Andy Sutton
Kyle Okposo	Freddy Meyer
Frans Nielsen	Bruno Gervais
Josh Bailey	Brendan Witt
Sean Bergenheim	Radek Martinek
Jon Sim
Jeff Tambellini

Only Mark Streit, Trent Hunter, Andy Sutton, Brendan Witt and Rick DiPietro have a cap hit over $2 million and DiPietro comes in the highest at $4.5 million. That's mighty impressive. The table above does have a fair bit of young talent, but theoretically, they have $30 million in cap space to add players from the minors, free agents and/or new draft picks (Tavares, ahem!) to the fold for some immediate improvement. Of course, improvement happens on a sliding scale, as it's not very hard to improve on the bottom, especially when you have so much wiggle room.

Even writing off 2009 doesn't seem so bad when the bumper crop of free agents and draft picks does seem rather plentiful. How will GM Garth Snow spend his potential millions or will he spend much of them at all? Can he actually get feasible players to fit into the system for Doug Weight, Bill Guerin and possibly a couple others? The team has some potential left in DiPietro, especially if he is actually 100% in October, and have one of the better offensive defensemen in the league already in Streit. Kyle Okposo and Josh Bailey are learning the game now, so next season it won't be so hard, possibly much easier.

GM Garth Snow has done a good job so far, I will give him that much credit, but now he's worked his way into a good position and some money to spend. How will he go about it... he can either do a Ken Holland or pull off a Glen Sather. I think I know which one I would prefer these days. Once we decide which way he went, then I'll decide to call him a good GM or not. Anyone can spend years fire-selling his team and be poor in the Standings...

Good Noon Notes

The Colorado Avalanche will get a little reprieve tonight, as they face the Thrashers in Atlanta tonight. Paul Statsny has been activated from the Injured Reserve and will dress for the first time since Christmas. Statsny has been out with a broken arm and now can resume his season, just where he left it... 31 points in 34 games. Statsny is still owned by Dale B. in the Draft and he can now try and make a push for 14th place.

This morning, the Dallas Stars made the move to recall Tobias Stephan from the AHL, which may indicate that Marty Turco's stretch of consecutive starts may be coming to an end here pretty soon. Stephan was sent down to the AHL in order to get some starts in game situations and it is likely that the Stars didn't want to start Brent Krahn, if they didn't have to. Krahn did see 20 minutes worth of action for the Stars, but that was in relief of Turco.

As of this morning, Kimmo Timonen is not expected to be in the Flyers' line-up tonight, as they take on the Capitals in Washington. Timonen, a Draft pick of Derek's, has been struck with a bout of the flu and will likely be a game-time decision. It would be rather devastating for the team if Timonen contracted the same bug that kept Mike Richards and Scottie Upshall for three games.

Click here to see an updated injury page.