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NHL Trade Deadline – The Warmup – The Bruins, wait… no. The Penguins have Jarome Iginla, what’s next?

So um… Last night I wrote this thing around 1am about how the Bruins had acquired Jarome Iginla because it was confirmed by TSN and Bruins fans were super happy.

Then at 1:30 the Calgary Flames announced that they’d just trolled the shit out of the Bruins and traded Iginla to the Penguins instead. Twice in one night the Bruins had something great in their hands and it was snatched away.

I’m leaving what I wrote up because I think it’s funny to look at what might have been, and the question at the end still applies, but for now HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA BOSTON HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Jarome Iginla is probably the nicest guy in the NHL.

Jarome Iginla is now a Boston Bruin.

Jarome Iginla is now an asshole.

The Bruins absolutely fleeced Calgary last night, you can find details of the trade over at Stanley Cup of Chowder. Iginla is no longer the player he once was, but he won’t be playing the tough minutes in Boston that he’s currently playing in Calgary, and he’ll likely play with better players.

I’m guessing that Iginla entering the lineup pushes Nathan Horton down to the third line with Rich Peverley, so Iginla will play with Milan Lucic and David Krejci. That’s a pretty scary second line.

Ya, that’s that’s the Bruins’ second line, because Patrice Bergeron, Tyler Seguin, and Brad Marchand are way too good to be called anything but a first line.

The Bruins got better. With the acquisition of Brenden Morrow, the Penguins probably got a bit better too, although Douglas Murray could negate that good effect since Murray is garbage.

That means the 2 teams in the Eastern conference who can hang with the Canadiens just got better, is it the Habs’ turn now?

If Rene Bourque and Raphael Diaz were healthy, I think the acquisition of Michael Ryder and the waiver pickup of Jeff Halpern would be enough to say that the Habs made their moves, but now I’m not so sure.

Diaz and Bourque still seem like they’re a long ways away, and the Canadiens could use a right winger with skill to play with Alex Galchenyuk and Lars Eller.

The names that stick out to me are two Czechs; Jaromir Jagr and Ales Hemsky. The trouble is, Dallas wants to sign Jagr to an extension, and Hemsky has another $5M against the cap next season.

Assuming the Canadiens buyout Tomas Kaberle (safe assumption) they have $11,061,667 of cap space this summer. With Hemsky in the lineup, knock that down to $6,016,667. The Canadiens have to fill only depth spots after that, with players like Ryan White, Colby Armstrong, and Yannick Weber up for new contracts, so it could be done.

Even more interestingly, it could be done at the same time as signing Michael Ryder to an extension, provided he doesn’t want an absurd contract. WIth his current level of production though, he just might.

So what should the Canadiens do? Hope for reinforcements from the IR, or make a trade? The Canadiens are damn good this year. They’re most likely going to be better next year, but they have a real shot right now. They owe it to themselves and this city to take advantage.


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