Deal or No Deal...

No, I'm not talking about the neat game show with the infuriating, jack-ass of a host. I speak of course about this years NHL Trade Deadline. This annual frenzy brings me nearly as much joy as the playoffs do.

Generally, this day sees a multitude of trades rivaling the number of trades of the entire rest of the season. And this year was no different.

My Sens traded an underachieving, oft injured forward in Brandon Bochenski for another apparent underacheiver in Tyler Arnason. But Arnason played for a deadful Chicago team, and has 41 points (second most on the team) and is an amazing +5 for the basement-dwelling Blackhawks. He should do an adequate job filling the second line center ice position and bolster our already quite potent offense.

Add to it all that we also acquired another goaltender to try and relieve some of the pressure facing Emery while Hasek is recovering, and you get that we had a pretty good day. And that we didn't even have to give up anything for the goalie (simply pull him off the waiver wire from Edmonton) makes today a great success. Sure, we may not have gone out and over-spent to bring in some big name player, but we addressed our needs and didn't mess with the chemistry of the team. All this and we didn't sell out our future either. Not a bad days work, Mr. Muckler.

As for the other teams out there, I did notice a few things. Edmonton looked to have done a great job patching the few holes they had. Vancouver seemed to have a monopoly on depth defencemen. Anaheim couldn't decide if they were buyers or sellers so they did both. Toronto did absolutely nothing worthwhile, which also describes the rest of their season.

The biggest deal of the deadline has to be the Theodore trade to Colorodo. I can't imagine what Pierre LaCroix is thinking there. He is usually so shrewd in his dealings, but may have missed the boat this time. The goalie he traded for has the potential to greatly upgrade the Avalanche at the position, with only two minor flaws. The first being that Theodore has played like shit all season and the second being that he is injured until at least the playoffs start. Considering that Colorodo had to trade their current number one goaltender to get Theodore and they are still in a fight to even make the playoffs, this could prove disasterous for the Avalanche.

This truly is my favorite holiday of the year...

Whole Lotta Shaking....

Yes, the rumors are true. I did survive the great Ottawa earthquake of '06.

I was on the phone at the time and I believe that my exact words were 'Holy crap, I think I'm in an earthquake!'.

Needless to say, an earthquake registering 4.5 on the richter scale was more that sufficient to break my boredom last Friday night.