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Good Moves This Off-Season

July 30, 2014, 2:07 AM ET [37 Comments]
Adam French
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It’s hard to judge an off-season in the off-season. It’s like judging a bikini contest of pregnant ladies, they all have a similar size and you don’t know what they will look like after.


Now that I’ve had my article deleted for the above joke, let’s get down to some business. This off-season was fun, and yes the dash will stay. While I don’t think anybody will ever really opine for the “Summer of Stastny,” this was an off-season filled with interesting depth moves and the final year of the buyout and get a deal free cards. While I did get to watch the draft in all of its glory, including the TSN panel basically blowing off more steam than Bennett, I didn’t get to join in the festivities of the medias greatest joke, Fee Agent Frenzy (Not a typo). The frenzy was mostly over how many mundane and boring personalities one can fit on a program at once and get them to talk about the same talking points for an exorbitant amount of time.


Now that we’ve had a bit of time to digest the moves and with the vast majority of the major decisions over and done with (I’m looking at you Subban), I thought it would be time to look at some of the moves I liked and why.


Brad Richards :

I loved this move for all three sides. Richards was bought out because, quite frankly, his contract was garbage and he can hardly keep up with the full play these days. That isn’t to say he isn’t still a good player, because he is, it’s just that he is now a niche player that requires a niche contract, one that the Blackhawks gladly gave him. The Rangers may not be better from this deal, but they aren’t terribly hurt and are certainly going to feel better about this in 2 years. Richards goes from losing in the Finals to a team poised to compete for the Finals, with less pressure and on a team filled with winners where his smaller deal won’t matter as much (plus all that buy out money). Lastly the Blackhawks get a guy who, on the surface of things, looks like their first legitimate second line centre in four years, especially considering this is a team employing a molasses legged Handzus as their second line C...and still won the Cup. I like this move all three ways and we all know it’s okay if it’s a three way.


Paul Stastny :

There were many teams on the list of possibilities for where he might land that would have made me retract any kind of praise over paying the premium for this seasons big fish, but the Blues ain’t one. A team that desperately needs more of an identity in the offensive zone got arguably the best forward in the UFA pool and one who seems to fit the Blues still more than say their last foray into the UFA market *cough*Roy*cough*. What has me salivating is what Stastny can do for two youngsters who have already cemented themselves as quite the dynamic pair in Tarasenko and Schwartz, injuries to Vlad aside, both look poised to be excellent top-line wingers, all they need is a man in the middle. Enter Stastny, a guy who has proven he can play well defensively, win some face-offs and most importantly play up to the talent of his wingers. When he gets wingers of quality, or at least guys he has chemistry with, he can produce very well. I won’t comment on going into the season with Elliot as a starter, but overall the Blues did fairly well this summer all things considered (like the Mueller signing too, why not right?).


Sam Gagner for Teddy Purcell :

I’m not saying this because the team making this trade was about to throw Gagner into the proverbial bay for the fish to deal with him, but because this looks like such a savvy move. Picking up Purcell who has become redundant on a team bursting with offensive forward prospects and looking to insert them in a position guys like Palat and Killorn have basically stolen on the cheap was a good move. Fancy stats people will tell you that Purcell is great, in fact amazing, I lean towards him being adequate. What he is though, is exactly what the Oilers need, a bigger body that can play with their top-6. He has proven he can be solid in a complimentary role with higher end players and that’s probably what they envision him doing next season. In the end though, they got him for their own redundancy and a redundancy who was not only going to be bought out, but then got traded for scraps.


Mike Santorelli :

While I guffawed at the amount of money Leo “Playoffs” Komarov was given to drag his butt back from the KHL and the intimacy of Dynamo’s embrace, I have to say that nobody can fault the Leafs on this signing. Basically on a career year (a large part played with the S-Twins), Santorelli was had for very cheap and for little term, no risk and the reward is fairly evident. He’s a bottom-6 guy, who sporadically shows some scoring touch. Even if he only scores 8 goals (A number pulled squarely from my rump), it’s still a solid move for a bottom-6 that desperately needed improvement in the whole “hockey playing” ability. Just hope it’s not the Santorelli that dogged it with the Jets, desperation has kept him in this league and with this kind of contract you’d expect the pressure to still be on.


These are just a few of my thoughts on good moves during this off-season. What do you think? Who got that special someone?


Thanks for reading.
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