JIM LANG ON SPORTS

BY: JIM LANG
FOR RODPEDERSEN.COM

NHL TRADE DEADLINE

From TSN’s James Duthie taking an Oscar-worthy selfie to Sportsnet’s ever present “strategy room” this year’s NHL trade deadline had a little bit of everything. In what has become the norm, the slow day picked up considerable steam over the final 90 minutes.

A big reason for the slow start was the blockbuster deal that took place the day before. The entire NHL was still reeling a bit after the Canucks dealt goalie Roberto Luongo to the Florida Panthers as part of a multi-player deal. As noted by Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) a total of 11 goalies were moved before the deadline. One of them, Jaroslav Halak, was dealt twice! With that in mind it is time to take a look at some of the winners and losers from deadline day.

WINNERS

The Montreal Canadiens: The Habs picking up Thomas Vanek for a prospect and second round pick is a shrewd move by Marc Bergevin for the stretch drive. Bergevin also picked up some insurance goaltending for future considerations with the acquisition of Devan Dubnyk. With 53 points in 60 games this season (spit between the Sabres and the Islanders) Vanek automatically becomes the Canadiens leading scorer.

The New York Rangers: I like Ryan Callahan’s “character” and his “compete level” but there is an old saying the team that gets the best player won the trade. Using that logic then the Rangers won the day with the acquisition of Martin St. Louis. After leading the league in scoring last year St. Louis is tied for 8th in scoring this year with 61 points. The Rangers don’t have a single player with 50 points so the pick-up of St. Louis should provide a much needed boost to their offence.

The Buffalo Sabres: The Sabres were not kidding around when they spoke about “rebuilding”. With the dust still settling from the departure of Pat LaFontaine you can be forgiven if you have lost track of all of the Sabres moves. After today, on top of all of their players and prospects, the Sabres now have two 1st round picks and three 2nd round picks to work with. Tim Murray deserves praise for assembling that many picks.

MARTIN BIRON

The former Sabres and Rangers goalie is a star on the rise. Always a great interview during his playing days Biron did a solid job on the TSN panel bringing insight into deadline day. On top of his smooth style Biron is, and has always been, a great story teller. Methinks we will be seeing a lot more of Biron in the future.

LOSERS


The New York Islanders: You could write a blog every year about the Islanders and their problems. Heck, you could write a blog every week about the dysfunctional Islanders. If there ever was a team that is considered the “Alcatraz” of the NHL, it is the New York Islanders. The Islanders no longer have Matt Moulson, (dealt for Vanek), they don’t have Tomas Vanek, John Tavares is hurt and their long suffering fans are on the verge of tapping out.

It is hard to know who to blame more; owner Charles Wang or General Manager Garth Snow. While Tavares recovers from his Olympic injury he has to be thinking “how soon until I become a UFA and I can leave this gong show?” Well barring a trade Tavares is stuck on Long Island until the end of the 2017/18 season. Who knows? Maybe by then the Islanders will have fixed all of their problems. Yeah, right. I didn’t think so either.

The Vancouver Canucks: Lucky for Mike Gillis that the Garth Snow is in charge of the Islanders. If not for the debacle on Long Island Gillis would look even worse than he does right now. In the period of 12 months he has dealt away two starting goalies in Cory Schneider and Roberto Luongo. If that wasn’t bad enough he failed to make a deal to rid them of the disgruntled Ryan Kesler. If the remaining (surviving) players in Vancouver thought playing for Torts was a bitch before, just wait.

The slumping Canucks are 1-8 and 1 in their past 10 games and there is little indication things are going to get better any time soon. Not only that you have a key player, Kesler, who wants shipped out of town. Come October the Canucks could have, in no particular order, a new General Manager, a new Head Coach and a new second line centre. I highly recommend reading some of the Canucks blogs out there to understand the level of anger and frustration being felt on the Lower Mainland right now. (Pass it to Bulis is a personal fav. http://vansunsportsblogs.com/)

WHAT NOW?

Now comes the hard part. Now coaches have to adjust to the players that have left and adjust to the new players that have arrived. This is where the leadership in a dressing room can make all the difference. Beyond whatever the coaches do and whatever strategies they employ with the new players the assimilation of the said player in to a new dressing room is vitally important to a team’s success.

That means when the team is on the road the leaders take the new player out to dinner. If there are any long standing grudges with that player now is the time to bury the hatchet and get on with the business of being a professional. Equally challenging is soothing the frayed nerves of a player who was convinced he was moving (i.e. Ryan Kesler) and getting him to focus on playing hard the rest of the season.

It is kind of a shame that the Lightning and the Rangers do not meet again the rest of the regular season. All is not lost because there is always the chance the two teams could meet in the post-season. Steve Yzerman is not exactly the biggest Marty St. Louis fan right about now so you can only imagine how badly he would love to see the Rangers knocked out of the post-season.

BO HORVAT

This past Sunday I was in London watching the Knights host the Peterborough Petes. Thanks to some stellar goaltending from Andrew D’Agostini the Petes managed to beat the power-house Knights. Even though it came in a losing cause Bo Horvat scored a beautiful goal and gives beleaguered Canucks fans some hope for the future.

Anyone who has never been to London, Ontario before will really enjoy themselves at the Memorial Cup. The Budweiser Gardens is a gorgeous barn and London is a perfect sized city to host the event.

(Follow Jim on Twitter at @JimLangSports)