The Trade Deadline came today without any major players moving around.  The Red Wings made their big move a few days ago trading for Kyle Quincey from Colorado.  This was a great move by them to add depth to the defensive core and provide insurance this summer if Brad Stuart goes back to California to be around his family and in case Nicklas Lidstrom retires.   In my mind, the only two teams that strengthened themselves for their playoff run today are Vancouver and Nashville.  Vancouver added Sami Pahlsson, Zack Kassian and Marc-Andre Gragnani while only giving up Cody Hodgson.  Hodgson was going to be a huge part of their future, but it is apparent that by trading him Vancouver wants to make a push for the cup now.  Gragnani will provide depth on the blue line, while Pahlsson and Kassian will add more grit to their forward lines.  Nashville added Sergei Kostitsyn’s brother Andrei in order to add more secondary scoring and they ponied up a first round pick for Paul Gaustad to get another depth center.  The Wings were interested in Gaustad but did not have the 1st round pick to get him.  Outside of these two teams, I don’t think anyone made any moves today that will vastly improve their team.  The Blackhawks do garner some consideration given the fact that they added Johnny Oduya on the blue line and traded away John Scott for a new washing machine.  Otherwise, most of the deals involving major players were made earlier this week.

  <–I will never get used to this.

Four days ago the Kings traded away their 2nd best defenseman Jack Johnson in an attempt to get more goal scoring.  By adding Jeff Carter, Kings General Manager Dean Lombardi has drawn a line in the stand and is essentially trying to save his job.  There is no reason that a team with this much talent should be struggling this much.  Quite frankly they vastly overpaid for Jeff Carter, he is not worth Jack and a first, and I hope that the Kings never make the playoffs again after Dean Lombardi hosed Jack like that.  They wanted him to sign a long-term deal last January so that during the summer of 2011 they didn’t have to worry about losing him as a restricted free agent.  Now he is stuck in Columbus for the next 6 years without Antoine Vermette, Jeff Carter, and in all likelihood Rick Nash, who is a candidate to be traded this summer at the NHL Draft.  Columbus’ General Manager Scott Howson and Dean Lombardi are having a competition to see who can do their best Mike Milbury impression.  For those of you that don’t know, Mike Milbury, a former General Manager of the New York Islanders, traded the 2nd overall pick in 2001 (Jason Spezza) and Zdeno Chara for Alexei Yashin, AND he traded Olli Jokinen and Roberto Luongo to Florida for Oleg Kvasha and Mark Parrish (Ouchtown population you Mike).

Two years ago there were 31 trades, last year there were only 16 and this year there were 15.  There has been a significant trade downwards of deals made exactly on the trade deadline day.  I was hoping that the Red Wings would add another forward, like P.A. Paranteau of the Islanders because of their cap space, but I trust Ken Holland to make deals that he only feels comfortable with and that are best for the team.

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