This Wed. April 3 at 3 PM Eastern the NHL Trade Deadline will be in effect. It will be the last chance for all teams to improve themselves before the playoffs begin in May. One team that has really got a head start on things in a big way is the Pittsburgh Penguins. After landing big defenseman Douglas Murray from the San Jose Sharks and Brenden Morrow from the Dallas Stars earlier in the week, the Pens then absolutely stole Jarome Iginla from Calgary on Wed. in a trade that has shaken up the hockey world. The Flames gave up a pair of college prospects who have about as much chance of playing in the NHL as I do and in the process completely P.O.'d the Boston Bruins, who thought Iginla would be playing for them. The Bruins, and many fans and media people, were positive that a trade had been finalized with Calgary and there were reports everywhere that it was a done deal, except that Iginla himself insisted that Pittsburgh is where he wanted to play all along, and so Pittsburgh it is.


If you think this is a little strange, this is only the beginning. In Canada, NHL Trade Deadline Day is like an unofficial holiday for our many hockey fans. Both of the major sports channels, TSN and Sportsnet, will have extremely detailed coverage on Wed. where even minor insignificant trades will be analyzed and dissected fully throughout the day beginning at 8:00 am and running all day until 6:00 pm, when both stations take a break to run their dinner hour sports news shows, where the main topic is expected to be ---what else?---the trade deadline.

The deadline is still 3 days away but there still could be a few major deals (and a lot of minor ones) made before then. If there are, keep it here and I will let you know. If you want to follow the action online, here are some great links to look at:


NHL (http://www.nhl.com/) (Official site)



TSN (http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/) NHL News

TSN TradeCentre (http://www.tsn.ca/tradecentre/)

List of trades made before the deadline (http://www.tsn.ca/tradecentre/feature/?id=11986)


Sportsnet (http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/) NHL News

Trade Deadline News (http://www.sportsnet.ca/events/nhl-trade-deadline-2013/)

Full trade list (http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/trade-tracker/)

Enjoy the fun, folks! I'll be looking forward to talking about it soon!

15 in a row for the Pens, the trades they did are only helping there cause! I hope it works out for them because they won't be having many high draft picks the next few years

wow, looking at most of the trades so far, the majority are for picks or future considerations - but the Jarome iginla trade is shocking (maybe the Flames were worried they were going to lose him as a free agent if they didn't agree to his terms?)

it is going to be interesting to see what happens with Luongo as well...

Are we seeing the calm before the storm? Since the Jarome Iginla trade, things have slowed down a little. Yesterday saw a couple of interesting deals as Calgary continued their fire sale by trading Jay Bouwmeester to St. Louis. The Blues had earlier acquired Jordan Leopold from Buffalo so their defense will be much improved going into the playoffs. Buffalo had also traded Robyn Regehr to the Kings yesterday and they may not be done yet with bigger names likely to follow soon.

Speaking of big names, today saw the first major deal since the Iginla trade. The Boston Bruins, who lost out on Iginla when they were sure he was theirs, landed Jaromir Jagr from the Dallas Stars for the usual price of draft picks and prospects. Dallas also traded Derek Roy to Vancouver earlier today.

So that's where we stand with less than 24 hours to go before the deadline ends. There's still a few intriguing names out there that may or may not be moved including Ryane Clowe (San Jose), Jason Pominville (Buffalo), Mike Ribeiro (Washington), anyone that might be left in Calgary, and a handful of veteran goalies that are sure to dominate the discussions tomorrow, including Mikka Kiprusoff, Roberto Luongo, Nikolai Khabibulin, Jonathan Bernier, Ben Bishop, and Ryan Miller. Look for at least 2 of them, and possibly more, to move tomorrow. This should be a lot of fun. Keep it here for full details. If you want to follow the action online, a great place I've found is on the Yahoo Sports site where a panel of experts from Canada and US are keeping a running Twitter tab on all the movement.

Yahoo Sports - Puck Daddy (http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/puck-daddy-2013-nhl-trade-deadline-eve-chatterbox-122015138--nhl.html)

In a lockout shortened season, the trade deadline is pointless.

I always hope for absolutely no trades on the actual day, because I want to see what all the media would then talk about.
Instead today we have all this countless media all saying the same thing. They need to feel useful.

It was a disappointing deadline day for the Canucks. They couldn't pull off another trade to compliment yesterdays aquisition of Derek Roy. Unfortunately that means Luongo is still here and on any given night the Canucks will have millions of dollars sitting at the end of the bench.

It is over! The trade deadline has come and gone. I watched the coverage on TSN and Sportsnet for a few hours and it was painfully slow there for awhile as, like Dianne said, the media was reaching hard for some fresh material to talk about, but as the 3 pm deadline got closer, some interesting names began to change teams. For the 2nd day in a row, the New York Rangers were involved in the biggest trade of the day. As I predicted yesterday, last night the San Jose Sharks traded Ryane Clowe, who was one of the most sought after players around the league despite the fact that he has yet to score this season. He ended up with the Rangers in exchange for a trio of draft picks. But the Rangers weren't done yet. In a big trade that is sure to leave their fans scratching their heads, today they traded one of their top scorers Marian Gaborik to the surprisingly hot Columbus Blue Jackets. In exchange they received a few spare parts in Derek Dorsett, Derick Brassard and John Moore plus a draft pick. Gaborik's former team, the Minnesota Wild, also made a big addition, getting Jason Pominville from Buffalo for prospects Matt Hackett and Johan Larsson plus a first and second round draft pick. A potentially high price for a very good young player. Pominville will be a great fit with Zach Parise.

Going into today, the big action was supposed to revolve around goaltending. A couple of goalies did get moved, but not the ones that everyone expected. Despite last ditch efforts by Toronto to add a veteran goalie, both of their intended targets Mikka Kiprusoff and Roberto Luongo stayed put with their teams. Kiprusoff didn't want to move anywhere and Luongo was burdened with a long and costly contract that scared off most teams. The Maple Leafs did end up adding a defenseman later on as they received Ryan O'Byrne from Colorado for a 4th round pick. I'll be looking forward to watching him play.

Ottawa had better luck with their man as they traded Ben Bishop to Tampa Bay for Cory Conacher, one of the leading contenders for the Calder Trophy as Rookie of the Year. A great trade for both teams! Former Calder winner Steve Mason was traded by Columbus to that notorious goalie graveyard, the Philadelphia Flyers, for backup goalie Michael Leighton. Ironically, the Blue Jackets currently own the NHL's hottest goalie, Sergei Bobrovsky whom they received in a trade with the Flyers last season. So this trade can either be seen as Columbus returning the favour or giving out a major payback. All in all, a good day for Mr Cleveland! :wave:

Those were the highlights of the day. There were other minor moves made but nothing that should affect the playoff races and certainly nothing that could match what Pittsburgh did last week or Boston adding Jaromir Jagr. I'm calling Columbus and Minnesota the big winners!