Thursday, February 12, 2009

Eklund: Numerous Team Interested in Rozsival

Eklund at HockeyBuzz reports...

"The Rangers are trying to move Rozsival and may have a taker in Tampa if they are willing to take some money back. Also, the Sabres are said to have some interest in Rozsival as are the Ducks should they move Pronger."

Eklund also adds that he heard the Rangers are talking to Chicago and knows the Penguins would love to trade for Prucha.

...if Sather ever traded Prucha to the Penguins he should be fired on the spot.

7 comments:

King Byrne said...

Trade Rozsival for the best offer you can get that doesn't involve salary coming back our way. That way a spot on Defence becomes available to the most deserving young player next season, at minimal cost. This would open up more than $4 million that could be used with more cap space to sign or trade for an affordable scoring winger ($4million range, not another $6mil range player that will further hinder maneuverability under the cap). Assuming that Avery is plucked off re-entry waivers for 1.9+change cap hit, hit money would essentially replace Prucha's 1.6 mil. That would make us look like this next season:

Naslund-Gomez- (acquired scorer)
Avery - Drury - Zherdev

Dubinsky would be 3rd line center, with wingers Korpikoski, Callahan, maybe Anisimov, and maybe Prucha, assuming he can be resigned for $600k, although I doubt he would even be willing to negotiate with Sather.

As for that acquired scorer for the $4mil range, available this summer are: Alex Tanguay, Martin Havlat, (don't shoot the messanger) Alexei Kovalev, Keith Tkachuk, and Brian Gionta (although our record for signing NJ Devils players is not a good one, maybe him and Gomez would rekindle old magic). Or, if Sather would want to sign a center with intentions of putting him (or Drury) at wing permanently, these players are available: Saku Koivu, Johan Franzen, and Nik Antropov.

While this isn't the greatest bunch, we don't have the money to go after Gaborik, Hossa or the Sedin's.

Unknown said...

You have to stop taking Eklund seriously. Use Spector or TheFourhPeriod.

Using Eklund for your rumor news is like using hockeytraderumors.com

IronClad said...

In terms of a spot becoming available for the most deserving young player, how about Bobby Sanguinetti?

Currently, he's the highest scoring defenseman on the WolfPack, with 27 points. He's only got 26 penalty minutes in 50 games, which shows that he's got some discipline. His -19 is concerning, but Potter (who has been up and down all season) is -11, so it's not like there's much of a dropoff.

Thoughts?

Kevin DeLury said...

Trust me David no one is taking Eklund's rumors seriously.

King Byrne said...

David - I wasn't taking Eklund seriously, but when thinking about it logically, it would be beneficial to move Rozsival for numerous reasons and many teams are looking for a player like him.

IronClad - The player I had in mind was Sanguinetti, I only used the phrase "deserving young player" in order to leave open the possibility of another young player emerging out of nowhere, like Girardi did a few seasons ago. I am currently working on a more in depth piece on the team's long-term outlook for my own blog, http://captainclutchnyr.blogspot.com/ , and should finish it by the weekend. Check it out sometime this weekend and let me know your thoughts then.

Zach said...

Eklund is notoriously full of crap and steals stuff from message boards BUT if it happens to be true, Cory Murphy from Tampa Bay would be a steal. He was brutally underused in Florida (never played the PP because of McCabe and Bouwmeester) but he QBs the PP and is very offensive-minded. Also has a good +/- on crappy teams.

Wrote about it on my blog here a few weeks ago that he'd be a good deadline deal.

Unknown said...

Plug!