So after a little 3 week hiatus, the NW links are back! And I'm branching out, so this weeks links include some from the Pacific Division as well

The View From My Seats looks at the 10 most hated players in the NHL, that you would secretly want on your team. Jibblescribbits then does one better and writes a poem about those asshat punks

The Royal Half thinks that if Kovy gets traded to the Kings, the introduction will be like Uma and Oprah meeting. And if you missed it earlier this week, their recap of the Boston Claw

Now that Vesa Toskala has been traded to the Ducks, Ryan Classic has done some investigating in to where in the world Vesa actually is as he hasn't shown up in Anaheim yet. Ryan may or may not be the only one that actually cares.

The day after Sheldon Souray fractured his wrist, An Oilers Refiney writes their season in review and say "Such an failure in the Heartland of Hockey is unprecedented"

MYFO explains that the trade of Brandon Prust to the Rangers was just part of the larger picture, the larger picture of the Sutters' mind f-ck of Prust

And the my favorite of the week so far: the Battle of California gives you the Patrick Marleau Facts

We're the boring one!  No, seriously… no awesome trades, nothing fun… just Nashville beating up on the Thrashers in front of 400 Atlanta fans who braved snow and ice for a roadtrip.  THANKS.  Asses.

DJ King is back.  Let's see if he can break his season best ice time of eight seconds.  Best of luck to you, Deej.  Thanks for completing the circle of DJ, BJ, EJ, and TJ.  The world is right again.

Speaking of road trips, Blackhawks fans are invading the Scottrade Center here soon… you've been warned.

The Forechecker looks at the Preds and who they can give up if they need to add some big guns come the trade deadline bonanza… you know, because apparently the rest of the league's behind on all of this.

Jim at Paint it Blackhawks looks at Dave Bolland and where he fits now.  Square peg, meet round hole.

I can find exactly jack and squat on the Blue Jackets this week… if anyone knows if they did anything, point me in the direction of said news.  Thanks!

The chin that wrecked many lives ...

A lot happened since CLS has been updated, but the biggest events occurred most recently: Olli "Hokey Pokey" Jokinen was traded to the Rangers, Dion Phaneuf finally was dealt to Toronto along with J. S. Giguere.

Obviously, those trades involved many other moving pieces but those were the pivotal parties. So why don't we take a look-see at how these trades altered the landscape for all four teams? Maybe we'll get more in-depth later, but for now I'll just hit the high points.

First, the "centre" of the hockey universe in Toronto ...

• It's been about a season of The Brian Burke scowl, but only now can we truly begin to look at the Maple Leafs as "Burke's team." He traded for the team's three biggest contracts: Phaneuf ($6.5 annual cap hit through 2013-14), Giguere ($6 million cap hit for the remainder of this season plus 10-11) and Phil Kessel ($5.4 million hit until 2013-14).
• Add Mike Komisarek's hefty $4.5 million hit and Francois Beauchemin's $3.8 million cap hit and that means that Burke's Boys account for a staggering $26.2 million in cap commitments for 5 players.
• According to Cap Geek's numbers, the as-of-this-moment Leafs would include 6 forwards, 7 defensemen and Giguere for a combined cap hit of $47.6 million! (Naturally, a lot can change but it's obvious that aside from Tomas Kaberle and Jeff Finger much of the Leafs' possible moves have already been made)
• Giguere is the short term goalie in Toronto, no doubt about it. Apparently Burke treasured the security blanket of nostalgia in Giguere rather than the fresh start opportunity of Vesa Toskala's contract expiring after this season ...
• Then again, Burke had to make some bold moves since ... you know, he traded what could have been hugely beneficial draft picks for Kessel.

• Somehow, Sather managed to move two of his many blunders off the team's cap in some (dare I say?) one-sided trades for him. While ridding the Rangers of Ales Kotalik is nowhere near the miracle of hypnotizing Bob Gainey to accept Scott Gomez's ludicrous contract, it still shows that Sather isn't the only GM with a few screws loose.
• It's probably wrong of me to look at Olli Jokinen as nothing more than an expiring contract, but the Rangers could be looking at a win-win situation. Wait, no, scratch that idea because if Jokinen plays well then they'll probably sign him to a motivation-killing 10 year contract and he'll play horrible hockey while Scotty Hockey plots the firing (like, burning flesh not pink slipping) of Sather. So maybe we should hope for a poor season for Jokinen ...
• More thoughts on the cap implications once Cap Geek does the work for me.

Now, the wildly different Calgary Flames

If given the opportunity, I will always use the "how to draw Jokinen" graphic. ALWAYS.

• Jokinen's name can be added to the growing list of players who couldn't cut it as Jarome Iginla's center. This list includes such luminaries as Chris Drury, so let's not lay this failure at Iggy's feet.
• It seems like Elisha Cuthbert's adorable cleft chin destroys everything it touches, like an alternate universe version of an airplane's black box. One moment, Phaneuf appears to be the next Chris Pronger and is on the cover of one of the best hockey games ever yet a couple years later he's not even one of the Flames' top two defensemen. I must ask, Cuthbert/Cuthbert's chin: who's next? You destroyed your own career, Phaneuf's career and indirectly neutered Sean Avery. No doubt about it, I fear what you're capable of in the future.
• Really, the Flames seem like they've hit the "reset" button on their franchise. Once again the team is basically a random mismatch of players alongside Iginla, Regehr and Kipper, only now with the expensive Jay Bouwmeester. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for this confounding franchise.

Finally, the cancer-fighting crew in Anaheim

• You can say that the changing of the goaltending guard actually truly took hold when Jonas Hiller started in the playoffs and out-played Giguere the past two regular seasons but this confirms those well-founded suspicions. One must wonder if Hiller will be as impressive now that he makes a standard No.1 goalie's salary going forward.
• With Pronger and Giguere shipped out in trades and Scotty Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne on the verge of retirement, this Ducks team is trading in its gray hairs for peach fuzz. (Braces for standard practice Getzlaf-inspired "but they'll still have similar hair lines!" type joke)
• It's great that Anaheim finally got rid of Giguere's problematic contract, but they also had to take on dead weight in the form of Jason Blake.

Now, the team is basically left with this nucleus:

The Good

Getzlaf-Perry-Hiller (about $15 million cap hit)

To Be Decided, but Quality Player

Bobby Ryan

Bad

Blake, Ryan Whitney (about $8 million cap hit)

So if Ryan makes Getzlaf-Perry type money the Ducks will have spend a little under $30 million for Ryan-Getzlaf-Perry-Blake-Whitney-Hiller. On one hand, there are some decent pieces in there. On the other hand, the Ducks are desperately thin on defense (a pretty shocking statement considering how they were among the league's best just a couple seasons ago).

Overall, I'd say that the biggest "winners" in that wild flurry of trades were the Ducks and the Rangers. Toronto is the team that just bet the deed of their house on [insert shaky poker hand] and Calgary is living in a broken home.

Someone asked if this is the "new" trade deadline and, to be honest, these trades are more exciting than anything that happened in last year's deadline.

So what are your thoughts, brave returning readers?

I think I'm just kind of all excited to get them up here, that's all.  Or, well... maybe I'm just all excited to have 2.3 nanoseconds in my week to attempt to find stuff on-line that's exciting about the Blue Jackets.

Speaking of the Beejays, Light the Lamp's advocating going after Phaneuf if he becomes available.  He might just well be one of the most overpaid defensemen ever, but it wouldn't kill Columbus.  That, and I will enjoy seeing Crombeen or Janssen wailing on him after every inappropriate hit 6 times a year.  It could work out ok, because with Hitch at the helm, it's not like Columbus'll be winning any time soon.

Preds 101 takes a look ahead by looking back.  Pretty cool idea, this "Week in Preview."

Babcock's Death Stare rips Osgood a new one for his attitude.  Are you just now catching on to Mopie Opie?  I really can't say I disagree here, though.  Either own his season suckiness, or suck it up an improve.  He's always been an average goalie hiding behind a good team, and this is becoming more evident every passing season.  Speaking of Howard, well, Nightmare on Helm Street - YES.

Blackhawks links are not omitted on purpose (hey, I put Detroit up here, did I not?) - work's blockers still think that SCH is an underground arms dealing site, and I'm not really seeing anything else noteworthy - I'll look when I get home.

The Blues can't hold on to a 3rd period lead.  And, in other news, the world is round and it's cold in Toronto.  How do we actually win after we blow our lead?  Stop shooting first in the shootout.

Tapeleg of Jerseys and Hockey Love invited me to a (tremendously fun) Texas Brahmas game and then we discussed a wide variety of hockey subjects on his awesome The Rink Podcast. Make sure to check it out and also make sure to listen to his other PC's (in which people with actual knowledge come on).

Feel the *excitement*.

Jimmy Howard's getting a bunch of praise for his play recently, which still has the Wings outside of the playoff bubble, but less so.  Actually, Darren Eliot thinks that their playoff hopes and dreams lay squarely on Howard's shoulders.  No pressure, kid.

The Cannon's looking for ways to help out with the situation in Haiti.  Please check it out (though nothing can compare to last night's epic GDT at Pension Plan Puppets - good one on ya, guys!).

Babcock's Death Stare takes a gander at who deserves to wear the winged wheel next season, and who probably needs to hit the road out of Detroit, like so many others.

Can someone please find me something doin' with Nashville and Columbus?  Please?  I know they still play hockey there.  Would media coverage kill you?

Mr. Ralph (which I find funny, because Toews... oh, never mind) looks at some questions the 'Hawks need to look at for next season.

Blues nabbed a new goalie consultant to replace Ed Belfour... same guy who has worked with Carey Price.  Weeeeee.

It's odd that Marty Turco's future is the hot button topic in many circles today because TapeLeg and I were discussing the subject on his (yet to be released) Podcast Saturday. This is actually a dumb idea that came to me last week, I've just been a busy beaver who somehow lucked into good timing.

As we all know, it's been a rough couple years for Turco. At one point it seemed like the playoffs would be the only thing that would bedevil the puck moving, flamboyant goalie but nowadays it's unclear if he'll even remain the starter in Dallas. These struggles lead to questions from bloggers and MSM'ers alike.

The DMN's Mike Heika wrote a story that indicated some of the young goalies the Stars may eventually target (his piece is far more credible than the just-for-fun trade concept you'll see in this post) and Defending Big D also discussed the Turco question a bit as well.

In Anaheim, a great playoff run and superior play this season allowed Jonas Hiller to usurp former Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe winning goaltender J.S. Giguere for the Ducks' starting job. Amid trades, injuries and soon-to-be-retirements, the Ducks seem eager to completely hand the keys to younger players such as Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Bobby Ryan.

Giguere's poor play and expensive contract mean that it's only a matter of time before the Ducks grow desperate to deal him. Turco's inconsistent, sometimes hare-brained antics and expiring contract explain why people are wondering about his future.

It may not be the most glamorous plan, but let's see why (and how) a deal could make sense - for both teams - after the jump.

JUMP!

Through no fault of his own - aside from his faulty knee and being lucky enough to sign the first of what ultimately turned out to be a cavalcade of reckless lifetime contracts* - Rick Dipietro has been the punchline goalie du jour for quite some time.

This eager criticism always struck me as a bit uneven. Yes, it's the New York Islanders; the team that once gave Alex Yashin Haiti's GDP to sulk and get his forearm severed by a skate. I know that.

Yet this is the post-Milbury Islanders and let's face it, Garth Snow (for all the jokes his goalie-turned-GM reign provided) actually was ahead of the curve. It's convenient that Dipietro ended up hurting his knee, but is it possible that the move was a sign of genius instead of a target for mockery. All because of his knee.

So, OK, people can point to the results and say it was a dumb move. At least now they can.

But let's not forget that Dustin Penner went from the Ultimate Bust to one of the only positive things to happen in a dreadful 09-10 Edmonton Oilers season. He - like Rick - only make in the $4 million-ish neighborhood.

Sure, in the short-term, the move could be quite awkward but no one is mistaking a scrappy but limited New York Islanders team for a contender.

Let's just say, if the Islanders get another good pick, Ricky D gets close to 100% and Snow adds a handful of Chicago Blackhawk cap casualties ... there'd be at least one person who wouldn't be blindsided.

* - Perhaps the world will never learn from the error that was Bret Hart's WWF "lifetime" contract ...

In Russo's Rants last night, Boogaard claims that Vigneault told the Canucks to fight (from what Hordichuk told Boogaard). As if the Canucks don't need more controversy these days.

Avalanche blogger Anyone But Detroit writes a post on the history of the Czech Repulic winning gold in the 1998 Olympics, and they did this 5 years after splitting from Slovakia

Mile High Mayhem compares the Flames and the Wings to see who is the Avs' biggest rival these days?

Low on Oils writes that Khabibulin is headed for back surgery and will be out for the remainder of the season. Lowetide has your thoughts on that and concludes that the Oilers are melting.

In the faux auction at SBN, Matchsticks and Gasoline weigh in with their thoughts about the Flames going for Kovalchuk

Ok, this is not really NW Division, but I figured it deserved some love: Five for Smiting sells the Ottawa Senators like Vince Schlomi slaps a....oh let's keep this pg...just go read it, it's gold.

And from last nights Flames v. Pens game, Sidney Crosby scores his 30th of the season and gets a marriage proposal:

Welcome to the West Coast Sid, just be thankful it's not the one beside her holding the sign.