The Offseason

I was watching the World Cup match between Portugal and the Netherlands, which was one of the ugliest matches in terms of officiating I’ve seen in any sport, at any level, including the intramural basketball games staffed by a girl who was afraid to say anything and a guy named Juan who was unfamiliar with the game of basketball. It was made worse by the Dutch team who took every opportunity to whine about the officiating and looked like the Icelandic team in Mighty Ducks 2 (It’s knuckle puck time!). And that got me thinking. It was the NHL draft yesterday! Not only that, there were three important trades recently for the NHL’s Northwest division. Let’s review.
First, let’s look my team, the Wild, made a trade that was totally unexpected on my end. They dealt the 17th overall pick in the draft as well as hot prospect Patrick O’Sullivan to the Los Angeles Kings for scorer Pavol Demitra. Demitra is, without a doubt, an elite scorer, and a high priced one a that. To me, this signals any combination of four things.
1) The Wild want to win now.
2) The Wild are willing to loosen their purse strings.
3) The Wild believe their system is deep enough that they can afford to trade away someone like O’Sullivan, regarded as a top prospect.
4) GM Doug Risebrough has no idea what he’s doing.
The fear is that Demitra may not be willing to stay in Minnesota, although with the new salary cap, Demitra will be hard pressed to find a better deal outside of St. Paul. The greater fear is that O’Sullivan will turn into a league altering force in Los Angeles. Nevertheless, the Northwest needs to take notice, because Minnesota is now clearly willing to sacrafice a part of their future for a more successful present.
The second trade of import to the Northwest is the trade between the Canucks and the Florida Panthers, which involved Alex Auld, Bryan Allen, and Todd Bertuzzi going to Florida for Roberto Luongo and Lukas Krajicek. Initially, it appears that the Panthers are winning out, as the drop off between Luongo in net to Auld will not be nearly as drastic as the loss of a bruising forward like Bertuzzi will be for the Canucks. But then you look and see that the Canucks have a glut of goaltenders, including one of the best in the league now starting in Luongo. Dan Cloutier looks like the odd man out, as both Luongo and Mika Noronen are talented and more recently acquired. What they lost in Bertuzzi, the Canucks can make up for by trading one of their talented goalies, which are the most valued commodity in hockey.
The trade that really scares me, however, is the one between the Calgary Flames and the Colorado Avalanche which sent forward Alex Tanguay to the Flames in exchange for defenseman Jordan Leopold. Both teams traded from a strength and received a top flight supplement for areas they needed the help. For the Avs, pairing Leopold with Jean Michel Liles must be a tantalizing future, and the Flames must be chomping at the bit to put Jarome Iginla on the same line.
Surely, the Northwest division has taken steps to improve. Ironically, the Oilers, Western Conference Champions, have the roughest offseason to look forward too now, what with Chris Pronger requesting a trade. Well, at least the Oilers only have a few months of down time. The Dutch national team has to wait for four more years. – Ryan