The Puck Stops Here

In my trade deadline review, I picked the Atlanta Thrashers as the biggest long term winner and the Pittsburgh Penguins as the biggest long term loser because of the Marian Hossa trade. Pittsburgh acquired free agents to be Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis in unlikely hopes of a Stanley Cup playoff run this season at a large cost. They gave up two young useful players in Eric Christensen and Colby Armstrong and last year's first round draft pick in Angelo Esposito, as well as this year's first round draft pick. In all likelihood, Hossa is only a shortterm rental. When the season is completed, he will sign as a free agent with another team and his short tenure in Pittsburgh will be over (Dupuis is the same situation - though in this trade he is mostly an NHL calibre warm body in this trade). Pittsburgh gave up a sizeable chunk of their future. Christensen and Armstrong are solid young players. Likely neither will be superstars, but they should have useful NHL careers. Atlanta will benefit from their presence. With young players like Esposito and the 2008 first round pick, one never knows. They might turn out to be very good players and they might not. I think it is likely a safe prediction that the three players involved in this deal that score the most points with their new teams are all players the Atlanta Thrashers obtained. In a best case, Hossa may score well for a few games, but it will only be a few games before he leaves Pittsburgh.

This trade just got worse in last night's Pittsburgh at Boston game. Not only did Pittsburgh lose 5-1, in the second period Marian Hossa hurt his knee and left the game. It was an accidental knee-on-knee collision with Boston's Glen Murray. Initial estimates are that Hossa will be out for about a week, but we will not know for sure until doctors examine him today. Things could easily be worse than a week. When you pay a high price for a shortterm rental, it is a huge blow for the player to be hurt. It is a huge blow if he comes back but cannot perform at 100%. It is really starting to look like Pittsburgh got burned on the Marian Hossa trade and the trade was made only a few days ago.