- I predicted Lombardi would go for a bottom-six sandpapery veteran and a depth defenseman. I was half right.
- Both Modin and Halpern have the Lombardi traits: leadership, veteran presence, grit, guts. Not to mention skill. That’s all good.
- Halpern, combined with Handzus and Stoll, makes the Kings formidable on face-offs.
- I am not celebrating the departure of Teddy Purcell. He is going to score 25-30 goals for Tampa next year. Puck Daddy must at least to some small extent agree with me, or he wouldn’t have given the trade three Milbury heads.
- Purcell
hashad the lowest GA/60 of anyone on the Kings. - Barring injuries, when Williams comes back there will only be room for one of Clune, Parse or Moller.
- Yes, I know Moller and Cliche were just sent down to Manchester.
- The Kings did not pick up a depth defenseman. I guess this means DL/TM think Drewiske will be back to 100% by the playoffs. I’m a little worried about someone getting hurt, because all we’ve got in Manchester is Martinez.
- I know we’ve got Voynov, but it wouldn’t be the ideal time to get him into his first NHL game.
- Terry Murray said today that the new guys will start out on the fourth line tomorrow. But I think the idea has to be for Modin to play on the second line with Stoll and Brown (after Williams comes back and Brown drops back down from the first unit).
- I’m guessing the lines (post-Williams return) will be:
Smyth/Kopitar/Williams
Modin/Stoll/Brown
Frolov/Handzus/Simmonds
Clune-Parse-Moller/Halpern/Richardson
As far as the rest of the league goes…
- Calgary and Edmonton appear to be idiots.
- Anaheim got Lubo, which sucks, but
- Anaheim is not going to go 13-5-2 to close out the season, so
- Anaheim is not going to make the playoffs.
- Phoenix has gone trade nutty, but I’m not sure what that’s going to do for them. It might be good. But I don’t know how you add that many players without messing with chemistry. It’s a bad time to have a second training camp.
- I had been reading on somebody’s message board that there was no way Burke would be dealing Ponikarovsky for something so stupid as (someone’s suggestion, not mine) Purcell and a 3rd. Then Burke traded “Poni” for Caputi (sub-Purcell) and Skoula, whom he then flipped for a 5th. And it turns out Burke turned down a 2nd and a 4th, in favor of Caputi and the (eventual) 5th. So, as far as the leafs fans who thought the return for “Poni” was going to be a 1st or some wonderful package, this is what you call an “optimism bias.”
- Last thought: are we sure all the trades have been announced?