so glad to be rid of Bowmeester. He's not a bad defenceman but he was so overpaid it was painful. Now Calgary has some picks and a bunch of prospects to work with. Hopefully we draft a bit better this year and can develop the prospects. We'll see how it goes.

feester needs to go.

the specific prospects that calgary got in return were not worthy enough in either the iginla or bowmeester trade. feester should have insisted on getting more, once he knew that iginla wanted to go to pittsburgh. i think that bowmeester could have been gotten for more as well.

and yes, bowmeester was overpaid, just like stupid phaneuf is.

calgary has had a number of garbage gms in the past few years, much like the leafs did.

I wouldnt say burke was a garbage gm, but he made bold moves and they were either amazingly good, or amazingly bad.

bobq : part of me is inclined to agree with you and part of me isn't. When other teams know your player wants out (or you want to get rid of him) then the price drops. Neither of those players are likely to have a high trade value in reality. Both have been good players in their own right but you aren't going to realistically get a superstar prospect for one of these players. No team is going to give up their real future stars for either player.

I honestly think Feaster got what he was going to get for these guys and that's it. At least now Calgary has 3 1st round picks in a deep draft. Maybe that will be worth more than any of the prospects they got.

And in the end, this is what Calgary has been needing to do for a couple years. I think this entire situation was dependent on Iginla finally agreeing to leave Calgary. Until that happened you couldn't gut the team and rebuild. Unfortunately that means prices on some players have dropped.

http://www.tsn.ca/tradecentre/feature/?id=11986


trade deadline has come and gone.

it seems that there were a couple decently big trades.

gaborik is now on colombus, and I think the rangers got robbed in that deal.

conacher is now a senator in exchange for ben bishop. This is one of those trades that can be a big win for one team and a disaster for the other. I think bishop will do well in tampa, especially with lindback there to, and conacher will be just another young senator and will fit in nicely. It seems like tampa has the pieces to make it to the playoffs, but they just arent getting it done. martin st louis and lecalvalier wont be around for many more seasons, so it seems like tampa will likely remain outside the playoff picture for another year or 2, where I think some big moves will occur. That is unless of course bishop doesnt put the team on his back and carry them, which he is very capable of doing.

filip forsberg is now on nashville, in exchange for erat and michael latta. I think forsberg will be a late bloomer and not work out for nashville for another few years.

pominville is now a wild. matt hackett and johan larson, plus a 1st and 2nd round pick is a heavy price to pay. I think buffalo won this deal.

bobq : Yeah, I thought that Gaborik deal was terrible. He's probably going to get out of Columbus as soon as possible, but still a good trade for them.

And that Pominville trade kind of shocked me. That means that this is the second captain to get traded this year.

And the other trade is that Pittsberg got Jussi Jokinen. Kind of a dumb trade if you ask me. Wasn't he availible to claim off waivers? But my biggest question is how are the Penguins still under he cap? Seems like they have tons of big contracts on their team. Will they have to pay for it sometime down the road?

Well, either way, I'm enjoying the Rangers beating up on them riht now. Exiting game.

I am not even watching the game anymore... the Pens are not really trying and I just cannot stand to listen to the NBC announcers.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with my team?! I blame the new guys mucking things up.

I am also wondering just where all this money is coming from... though I am sure a lot of them are only going to be here for the cup run.

Crosby is hurt.

Pittsburgh is a great time without him, but they are much more beatable when Crosby is not there. That is how he separates himself from every other player in the league. The players on the penguins are very good in their own right, but Crosby makes ever player on his team that much more dangerous, because they are focusing most of their attention on him, and that allows the other players to do their thing, and get open and make plays. When Crosby is in the lineup, teams have to be nearly completely mistake free for a chance to top the penguins, because he can win a game even if the rest of his team is struggling. Crosby makes plays that lead to pucks in the back of the opposing teams net. He also is responsible defensively. Crosby's teammates don't have to try so hard to score goals when he is in the game, because more often than not, Crosby gets a point. That is one or more points closer to a victory. This is why Pittsburgh, although still terrific, is much more beatable now than when Crosby was in the lineup.

I hope he comes back for the playoffs. He is poised to lead his team to the cup. They are capable of winning it without Crosby, but the road would be a lot easier with Crosby leading the way.

and you have 4 guys that don't know the system that Pittsburgh uses and until they get familiar with it they aren't going to struggle a bit.

And with Crosby out of the line-up you can't even make a "3rd line" with the new guys and keep 3 other lines of guys who know the system. With Crosby out that doesn't work so well.

Give it a few more games and the team will bounce back.