FanHouse NhlTradeDeadline

The Clash once posed the question: Should I stay or should I go now? We take a look at the big names surrounding the NHL trade deadline and whether they'll be staying in place or going to finish the season in another city.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. After giving a contract extension the good ol' college try over the summer, Minnesota Wild general manager Doug Risebrough has watched his biggest trade asset blow up in smoke. Marian Gaborik has been injured for virtually the entire season, first going down the day before Minnesota's third game of the season. For the season, Gaborik has appeared in a paltry six games. With their best player spending too much time in the training room, it's no surprise the Wild are in a struggle for their playoff lives.

Happy Trade Deadline Day to one and all! The next few hours (and the ensuing aftermath) should make for an interesting and (hopefully) unpredictable time for puckheads across the land. Here on FanHouse, we'll be offering updates and analysis throughout the day. We also encourage you to check out our own James Mirtle's coverage, the updates from Lyle "Spector" Richardson, the mainstream media coverage from Newsday and TSN's Trade Centre, and the audio and visual coverage from The Fourth Period, where I'll be appearing on their live streaming radio show today at 1 p.m. There's just so much information out there, why would anyone by dumb enough to pay for it?

But none of those media outlets have what we have this deadline on FanHouse: The Milbury Scale for trade evaluation. That's right: We'll be rating each transaction through the mystique of Mike Milbury, current NBC analyst and one of the most disastrous (and tenured) general managers in recent NHL history. Here's how it works:

One Milbury: A fair trade that helps both teams, both in the short term and in the long run. No winner, no loser: Just a solid deal founded on smart financial and hockey needs.

Two Milburys: A trade that could, down the road, burn one team in a big way. We're talking a trade of blue-chip prospects for a rental, if the team that's renting clearly isn't going to win it all this season.

Uh-oh! Three Milburys means a clear winner in a deal at the time of the trade. Someone got a little too desperate, or someone just got hosed!

Disaster on an epic Four Milbury scale. Bertuzzi, McCabe and eventually Jarkko Ruutu for Trevor Linden! Luongo and Jokinen for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha! YASHIN!

Darren Dreger of TSN reported today that the Tampa Bay Lightning have alerted center Brad Richards they're trying to deal him. Richards has given management a list of teams for which he'd be willing to waive his NTC; GM Jay Feaster will take the offers he's received -- allegedly from Vancouver, Columbus and Dallas -- to ownership, and a former Conn Smythe winner making $7.8 million per season until 2011 could be gonzo by the trade deadline.

If you go by the hockey rumoristas, Richards has been on the block longer than a septuagenarian prostitute. But this time could be different, if Dreger's on point with this line from his TSN.ca piece: "Tampa Bay's incoming owner Oren Koules is said to be heavily involved." Koules has taken over a losing team with the gross national product of Guyana tied up into three players; snipping a valuable but under-performing Richards would, I imagine, be something he might be interested in.

There are several teams rumored to be in the hunt for Richards. But would he improve any of them in the short term or the long run?

Way to spoil the Trade Deadline party, baldy: Mats Sundin has decided not to waive his no-trade clause and will remain in Toronto for the rest of the season. TSN reports that Sundin and his agent J.P. Barry came to the decision on Sunday, and in a statement Sundin appeared a tad insulted that Toronto interim GM Cliff Fletcher and the Leafs had asked him to waive it in the first place:

"I have carefully considered the team's request that I waive my no-trade clause," Sundin said in a statement. "I have always believed I would finish my career as a Toronto Maple Leaf so the actual request was still a very difficult one for me to contemplate."

[...]

"I cannot leave my teammates and join another NHL Club at this time. I have never believed in the concept of a rental player. It is my belief that winning the Stanley Cup is the greatest thing you can achieve in hockey but for me, in order to appreciate it you have to have been part of the entire journey and that means October through June. I hope everyone will understand and respect my decision."

Sundin is a pending unrestricted free agent, and Fletcher told the Canadian Press that the forward is "not interested in entering into a deal for next year" at this time. Should the Leafs even welcome him back? Sundin has placed his own personal comfort ahead of self-sacrifice for the franchise he so dearly adores. The asking price was only going to rise as Tuesday's deadline grew near; there's no telling what improvements to next year's Leafs their captain just pissed away because of his nihilism toward the "concept of a rental player." Ice Junkies believes this decision is the epitome of class; I couldn't disagree more.

Center Jeff Carter should be on the end of a hook, dangling in the water as some middle-aged guy drinks a Miller Lite in the boat above. He's the Philadelphia Flyers' biggest bait at the trade deadline: a young (born in 1985 ... I feel like I should have an AARP card) talented offensive player at a position where the team has a ton of depth. He's also due a decent raise as a pending RFA.

The Flyers already tried to flip him for Tomas Kaberle, until the Toronto defenseman and his agent explained to interim GM Cliff Fletcher exactly what a "no-trade clause" means. Now, it appears there was an offer of Carter for Boston Bruins forward Phil Kessel (born in 1987 ... should I be collecting social security already?). Kessel's signed through 2009, and the Bruins would also be dealing from a position of depth. Plus, the Bruins haven't exactly been high on him this season.

Like I said, an offer was made -- it's just unclear who made it and who decided not to make the deal. The Courier-Post reports that Flyers GM Paul Holmgren offered Carter for Kessel and was denied by Boston. The Toronto Sun said it was Boston that offered Kessel even up for Carter, and was rejected by Philadelphia. Sun Media writer Terry Koshan adds this evaluation of Carter: "He is a little too carefree on the ice for the team's liking." It's probably a good thing he's not going to Boston -- Coach Claude Julien's stifling system evokes a lot of words, but "carefree" isn't one of them.

Finding fresh information at the trade deadline leads to some fascinating sources and leaps of faith. I've read rumors that have come from security guards at NHL arenas and from random family connections to players that recall Darth Helmet's "I'm your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate" line from "Spaceballs." But this one about Marian Hossa originates from Montreal La Presse writer and hockey author Mathias Brunet, who writes in the French-language publication that the Canadiens are preparing for a potential trade with Atlanta. According to Habs Hockey-Talkey's translation, Brunet's reporting that the Habs are getting Hossa's gear ready:

Mathias Brunet of La Presse reports that the Montreal Canadiens have gone ahead and processed an order to have equipment fitted to Marian Hossa's measurments fabricated. The order does NOT necessarily mean a deal is made and pending announcement; it simply means that SHOULD the ongoing talks between Gainey and Waddell sprout into a deal for Hossa, his equipment (in Habs colours) will be awaiting his arrival.

There was a similar situation in the past, 2 years ago to be exact, as the Canadiens had pre-ordered the development of equipment for Chicago Blackhawks members Nikolai Khabibulin and (then) Adrian Aucoin, as a deal was nearly made to acquire them in exchange for Jose Theodore, Mike Ribeiro and Pierre Dagenais. The deal was apparently accepted by both parties, but fell through when Khabibulin suffered a serious knee injury before it was made official.

Montreal is fairly loaded on the right side, and seeing pending UFA Michael Ryder in a package for a potential rental of Hossa wouldn't be out of the question. That is, unless Ryder finds himself in Calgary instead.

We've now entered the realm of the absurd in the Peter Forsberg Sweepstakes. After his agent Don Baizley told every NHL team that was still in the running for the porcelain Swede to get on with their lives rather than stake their deadline strategy on his wonky (great word) foot, Forsberg has mixed that message. He told Swedish national broadcaster SVT that "the foot doesn't feel 100 [percent], but there is still one week left until the deadline." Good Lord. More from Chuck Gormley of The Sporting News:

Forsberg continues to skate with Modo of the Swedish Elite League and there remains a possibility, albeit a slight one, that he could sign with an NHL team at the deadline in hopes that his surgically reconstructed right foot will feel closer to 100 percent by early March. "(Forsberg's agent) Don Baizley told me Peter was not confident his foot was good enough to work this year," Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren said Tuesday. "He didn't say Peter was 100 percent not confident. Cryptically or not, he left the door open for Peter to come back."

More from the Winnipeg Sun, which nearly used the same headline I did. Wait, does this mean Schultz's Foppa letter on BMR was a fabrication? Even the part about "the complimentary blackjack and hooker parties?"

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

Once in a while, the depth of hockey's historic traditional winks through a box score or a game summary, providing the kind of century-old context that only Major League Baseball rivals. So here's the magnitude of Montreal's 6-5 shootout victory last night against the Rangers: It was the first time in 99 years the Canadiens had ever rallied from a 5-0 deficit, and it was the first time in the Blueshirts' history in which they'd lost a game that they led by five goals.

This is the sort of game that gets highlighted on a Stanley Cup champion's commemorative DVD. The kind of effort that rockets Alexei Kovalev's name into the Hart Trophy mix, with two of the Canadiens' three third-period goals, including a falling-to-the-ice game-tying tally on the power play. But most importantly -- at least for this cynic -- is that it's another example that the NHL's current standings system is an absolute disgrace. The New York Rangers blew a five-goal lead in regulation and lost in a skills competition; and yet that was meritorious enough to earn a point in the standings?

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, Trade Deadline Scuttlebutt, Why Vancouver Canuckleheads Are Fan-tastic, Why Jarome Iginla Is Such a Little Girl, Tonight's Must-See Games and a Heavyweight Brawl From Last Night.)

The GM Meetings in Naples, Fla. are providing their usual tease of rules changes (Five-man shootouts? A change in policy on the instigator rule?) while turning up the hot stove chatter to blistering levels. Today's target: Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Tomas Kaberle.

He's under contract until 2012, but he's also cheap ($4.25 million per year) and the kind of top-pairing defenseman that's in short order at the trade deadline. Scott Morrison of the CBC reported today that no less than 15 teams had inquired about Kaberle. Howard Berger of the Fan 590 said that the Flyers and Leafs are "having talks, and the Flyers are among a half-dozen teams that could use Kaberle's smarts and puck-moving skills in an effort to boost their playoff designs." Guess who else is talking? Kaberle's agent Rick Curran, who poops on the party and tells TSN's Bob McKenzie that his client plans on remaining in blue pajamas:

"Tomas Kaberle is not going anywhere," agent Rick Curran told TSN. "He signed a contract to be a Toronto Maple Leaf and while he's disappointed with the way things have turned out this season in Toronto, he has no intention of leaving. He's fully committed to the Maple Leafs. That's why he signed a long-term contract (three more seasons after this one at $4.25 million per season) and that's why he's not waiving his no-trade clause.

"I don't know how much clearer I can be on this. I talked to Tomas two weeks ago and he told me he's not going to waive his no-trade. I talked to Tomas two days days ago and he said then he hasn't changed his mind. I talked to him this morning and it's still the same thing - he's not moving. He likes Toronto, he likes the Maple Leafs and he wants to be a part of the team getting better. Players have no-trade clauses for a reason and Tomas doesn't want to be traded. It's really that simple. It's just not happening."

If this were "Dumb and Dumber," we'd be at the part where Lloyd Christmas goes, "So you're saying there's a chance..."

Last night's win over Montreal -- which included Vinny Prospal's hilarious public dis of who we assume is Coach John Tortorella -- put the Tampa Bay Lightning eight points out of the eighth seed in the East and six points away from the lead in the up-for-grabs Southeast Division. Yet with his unrestricted free agency this summer, defenseman Dan Boyle could be on the block whether the Bolts are buyers or sellers. The French-language RDS.ca reports that Boyle has created a list of 10 teams for which he'd be willing to waive his no-movement clause. The Fourth Period provides the translation:

"I know that the future owner wants to keep me, but with all the latest developments, I don't know what will happen," Boyle told RDS. "In the next few days, my agent will speak with [GM] Jay Feaster and it's at this time that I will know more."

Boyle has a no-trade clause and listed the Montreal Canadiens among the teams he'd be willing to go to. "I want to play for a winning team," he said. "[In Tampa], we can start winning again, the team is only missing one or two pieces. But I've already spent four years in Florida (with the Panthers and Lightning) without winning. I do not want to re-live that."

Dave Pagnotta of TFP makes a pair of good points in his analysis: That some quality on the blue line is second only to another top-six scorer on the Habs' list of needs, and that Boyle could just Tkachuk his way back to Tampa in the off-season. Still, I wonder what other teams Boyle is considering -- I know one out West with a ton of cap space and the need for points from the defense.