NHL Day 1 of Free Agency : Pittsburgh Penguins grabbed onto Zbynek Michalek and Paul Martin
Finally the day which the NHL fans were cribbing on for about has come. The National Hockey League free agency has begun, and leaving some franchises in dismay yet some who could not be happier; making some into the losers for the day and some the winners.
Let us take a peek at the top 3 losers:
The St. Louis Blues who were on the brink of spending a lot of money in order to obtain a good player, keeping a lot of room under their salary cap, sadly were not able to do much; besides extending a contract with their forward Alex Steen and signing a former Boston Bruins centre Vladimir Sobotka, a player who has nothing to offer to the team besides his good looks. But it might just be all good because they signed him on for just a one-year-contract. It could be because they were knocked for six by the other teams after observing how much they had to offer to other extreme players. However they still have a chance to get hold of some nice players in the following days.
New York Rangers, yes the Rangers are definitely one of the biggest losers of the day. They might have made a decent good decision by picking two pretty reasonable goal tenders; such as Henrik Lundqvist who played for the Swedish League before might add some joy to the team, and by adding Martin Biron who has more than a decade of experience with NHL as a professional goal tender. So it might all sound good till now, why are they being considered to be such big losers? it all comes down to the thoughtless decision the team made by giving Derek Boogaard their left winger another chance, the Rangers signed a $6.5M contract with him for over four years. Apparently the rangers do not realize Boogaard is on the verge of his career.
Calgary Flames, the team that has only managed to win one Stanley Cup in the past two decades is high on the list for proving to be a big failure once again. The Flames General Manager Darryl Stutter according to the grapevine brain ceased ever since he joined the team. He drafted players like Ollie Jokinen and Alex Tanguay who gave one of the worst performances in the last few years. Certainly Darryl thought he was doing the right thing as always, yet not realizing he is taking the team down once again. This has to be one of the most absurd decisions in the season.
Winners:
The Atlanta Thrashers have certainly had a great day, the team’s General Manager Rick Dudley with any doubt made the right decision trading off their defence player Ivan Vishnevskiy to the Chicago Blackhawks for Left Winger Andrew Ladd. It came to be quite a surprise after Chicago Black Hawks easily agreed to the trade, giving off a player who was #4 pick in the 2004 Draft season. Rick believed strongly that Andrew was the winger they needed, and could really elevate the team’s performance. The Thrashers also signed Chris Mason a goal tender from St. Louis Blues, he was certainly a steal because Thrashers acquired him for half of what he could have made with his former team.
Dan Hamhuis, the heavy weight, joined the Vancouver Canucks, leaving Nashville Predators who he played for almost a decade. So what made Dan leave his beloved team? The Canucks offered him an extremely sweet deal, promising him to keep him off their roster and keeping him on the field. Vancouver Canucks is a team which always have a chance to head to the season championship, who would not want to join it. Landing a 6 year contract for $27M is a quite respectable deal for Dan Hamhuis.
Penguins did it again; getting hold of the best defence players the season had to offer. The Pittsburgh Penguins might have lost Sergei Gonchar but they grabbed onto Zbynek Michalek and Paul Martin for around $9M per season under a five year contract. They might not be able to fill in Sergei Gonhar’s shoes but a duo between the two could definitely make the team stronger.
This pretty much wraps up the first day of the NHL free agency, with fingers crossed by NHL fanatics hoping day 2 would somewhat be more exciting.
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