T-Day!

Well, for the few of you out there that follow hockey, you know what I am talking about. T-Day is become a national holiday in Canada! Canadians take the day off or call in sick to follow the trades that will be going down today. Today is the trade deadline in the NHL. There will be a lot of action today between teams who are contenders for Lord Stanley’s Cup and the teams that are ready to start rebuilding for next year. Atlanta is not necessarily out of the playoff picture, but it will be a tough road. So I would expect there to be a couple of trades involving some Atlanta Thrashers players, the biggest being Marian Hossa. He will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year and it is pretty obvious that he doesn’t want to stay in Atlanta. So the Thrashers GM, Don Waddell, needs to make a move to trade him and get something in return. Right now it looks like there will be a trade for Hossa and he will be going to the Montreal Canadians. Which coincidently is the team the Thrashers play tonight. If the deal gets done in time, Hossa might be playing against his current team tonight. Talk about a weird situation for the players! There is still a chance that he will go to another team, like the Ottawa Senators or San Jose Sharks, but from what I am reading, Montreal is most likely.

As a Thrashers fan, I hate to see Hossa go, but I also know that if we don’t trade him now, then he is going to walk at the end of the season. Hossa is the Thrashers second leading scorer with 56 points and averages 21:55 of ice time per game. So it is better to trade him now and get a decent player and a draft pick or two for him. I don’t necessarily think we are out of the playoff race, but I know it will be tough to get in. If the deal goes down with Montreal, it looks like the Thrashers would get Michael Ryder and a draft pick in return. Ryder has got 23 points this year and he is not quite on the same level as Hossa. But at least he would be a good role player for the Thrashers and we won’t be left empty handed at the end of the season.

So sit back and enjoy the excitement of T-day! All three of you guys who follow hockey and read this blog. For the rest of you guys, just have a good day.