Senators to trade Emery?

Rumour has it that the Ottawa Senators may in fact be close to trading 24-year old goaltender Ray Emery to a Western Conference (apparently, the Los Angeles Kings) team along with forward Patrick Eaves and a prospect coming up from the Sens' farm club in Binghamton (suggested to be Josh Hennessey) in exchange for a goaltender and player.

Kevin Lee from Hockeybuzz, posted this on his blog yesterday and fans are anxiously awaiting to see if it's true or not.
To add more flame to the fire, GM Bryan Murray was reportedly in Binghamton last night to watch the prospect involved in the deal play, again, according to Lee.

Oh boy, this is interesting, is Emery on the way out? Already?!
He led his team to the Cup Final last season, was locked up to a big deal and is still young.

Have the Sens given up on him? Already?!

Interesting indeed,

-BBeR

Cullen to Canes Challenge - Prove That I Didn’t Nail It First!

Maybe it’s a case of petty-pomposity, or maybe I just have nothing better to do with my time. But my July 9 blog (at another site) was the first written occurrence in the hockey world to speculate on the Rangers trading Cullen back to Carolina.

Click Here to See the First Written Mention of This Trade:

It wasn’t a case of sudden, brilliant prognosticating. Instead it was a simple case of putting 2 and 2 together (No I’m not cloning Brian Leetch, bringing them out of retirement and pairing them with each other). It was reported that Carolina was looking for a third line center, and with the Rangers tight to the cap and having recently acquired Gomez and Drury, Cullen’s expendability and recent history with the Canes seemed to make this one obvious. Within a couple of days of July 9, this trade was being speculated everywhere. But on July 9, it was only “moi”.

The Challenge: If anyone can produce concrete evidence that this trade was publicly mentioned in writing before my post on July 9 at 4:06 PM Eastern Time, then I will owe you a bag of pucks. Not much I admit, but I’m just an unpaid, volunteer blog writer. If by some miracle you do win this challenge, hit up Matt Cullen and his $2.8 million a year contract for a grander prize. Besides, humiliating a Rangers fan in public should be reward enough for any of you.

The Secrets Revealed: While we’re at it, here is another chance for you to learn about why the Rangers seem to be able to maintain a mysterious defiance of the salary cap, while also holding an iron grip on Russian Hockey fans. This tale of intrigue includes a mystical Russian man and suggests an underground pipeline of dubious double dealing that flows from Russia to the Rangers Management - and all the way to the National Hockey League Headquarters.

Click Here to Uncover The Truth About All the Above-Mentioned Secrets:

I'm sorry but 3 comments just were not enough.

Cullen Back to Canes

According to TSN.

In a move that surprised absolutely nobody, the Carolina Hurricanes have re-acquired Matt Cullen from the New York Rangers for two stiffs and a 3rd round pick. Maybe the Rangers intend to get under the cap after all!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Cullen profess that he'd prefer to stay in NY?

Lies, damn lies!!! So, is this just a classic case of the hot girl dumping the nice guy after he dumped his original girlfriend? Or could it be that Cullen has been so thoroughly programmed with cliches like everybody else in the NHL that he honestly didn't believe he could be traded to a team that might actually want him?

Senators swap Schaefer for B's Donovan...

Our amigo Eklund is reporting this deal as an "e5", which means it's infallible and that the deal will be posted soon, and quite frankly, Sens fans should really shut their eyes and not read the innuendo that follows.

In one of those rare inter-division deals, Boston sends the 32-year old Shean Donovan to the Senators for winger Peter Schaefer.

Donovan had 7 goals and 11 assists in 76 contests for the Bruins last season for a total of 19 points, mainly as a 4th liner while his counterpart, Schaefer, more than doubled his point total, scoring 12 goals and adding 34 assists for 46 points in Ottawa.

Boston just fleeced Bryan Murray so badly, they dumped a declining checking line player, who seems to have lost that offensive spunk he showed with the Flames a few years ago, and got back a quality secondary scoring player, who can bring a consistent offensive game to the table.
Schaefer was long rumoured to be on Byran Murray's chopping block, but one couldn't imagine him giving up a decent scoring liner for a mediocre and borderline NHL player, even if it meant dumping an annual salary in the area of $2.3 million over the next few seasons.

But on the other hand, Murray had his reasons for doing this.

As Darren Dreger so gleefully pointed out last week, the Senators still don't have Jason Spezza and perhaps more importantly, 50-goal scorer Dany Heatley under contract for the 2008-2009 season, making them potential restricted and unrestricted free-agent in less than 365 days, respectively.
Heatley is expected to break the bank for whatever teams signs him, whether it's Ottawa or someone else while Spezza's current $5 million salary could take a serious hike should he elect to go to arbitration.
The enigmatic and ever-frustrating Wade Redden will also be able to hit the open market, and he would surely be an attractive defenceman to own for many GM's, even if his game isn't what is was 2 years ago.

So, in short, Murray got fleeced, but he gave up a good 2nd liner in hopes of retaining an elite 50-goal scorer, an all-star centre and...Wade Redden, not to mention the many restricted free-agents he has to deal with such as Antoine Vermette and Patrick Eaves.

The move clears up more than 1 million in cap space, still a small step, and don't be surprised if Murray makes any other eye-shocking deals to save his team's core (Spezza, Heatley, Redden) sometime this season.

--BBR

Wild deal Fernandez to Boston as Tkachuk signs pact with Blues

I'll get more up on this later, just wrote a huge post on Briere and Drury, so I'm kinda pooped, but here's the basic:

The Boston Bruins have finally got their no.1 goalie, and no, it's not Evgeni Nabokov like many fans might've hoped but the well-rested Manny Fernandez, who after a breakout 2005-2006 season in which he stole the starting role from now Oilers goalie, Dwayne Roloson, missed a huge chunk of 2006-2007 to multiple injuries and eventually lost his starting role to the emerged and fully loaded Niklas Backstrom.

This deal per the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Fernandez was expendable from the Wild's point of view, with their new no.1 man in Backstrom and Josh Harding itching to finally get playing time, there was no more room for him.
His $4 million salary is also a hefty addition to the Bruins' payroll, and should hinder them from targeting any major players on this summer's UFA market.

The Wild received top prosepct Peter Kalus, who had an awesome end-of-season stint with the Bruins last year and impressed many many people.
I guess Minnesota fans can consider Kalus a replacement for Patrick O'Sullivan, another top prospect, who was dealt to the LA Kings at last year's draft for Pavol Demitra.
They got O'Sullivan back, but now his name's Kalus.

The Blues have also signed forward Keith Tkachuk to a 2-year deal worth $4 million per season.
Tkachuk's a valuable asset to any lineup and his return to St. Louis is heroic and I hope they seriously turn it around next year, they have the tools, all they gotta do is bring in a big name tomorrow.

--BBR