Its hard to keep up with the
CHL trades made over the last few days. And its hard not to be following the bus from Oshawa to
Belleville this afternoon, as the big trade that has yet to be made occupies a lot of attention all over the hockey world.
As of 5:00 this afternoon, John
Tavares is still a member of the Oshawa Generals. He is scheduled to play tonight in
Belleville against the Bulls, but we will have to wait and see. If a trade is really close, it is possible that
Tavares will be held out of the game, but as of now, he's playing. Rumours have London, Windsor, and Brampton as the possible destinations, but my money is on London. Windsor already pulled off a big enough trade today (see below).
Brampton would probably like to get
Tavares too, but I am not sure that the team could give up enough and still make it far in the playoffs. Some of the trades made today suggest that Brampton thinks that this is the Battalion's year, but very honestly, if I was Brampton I would have let Windsor and London battle it out, been sellers this year (i.e., trade away
Hodgson) and stocked up for next season. It does not look like that is in the Battalion's game plan, but I hope this gamble pays off for them, because it is a big risk.
Okay, I have had my say on this topic. Let's look at what happened today.
QMJHLThere were seven trades thus far in the Q today. With only approximately 15 hours left, there should be a flurry in the morning, but let's look at today's trades in context.
Before tonight's games, three teams (
Shawinigan,
Drummondville,
Moncton) had 67 points to lead the league. The
Cataractes have played three more games than the Wildcats, and two more than the
Voltigeurs.
Shawinigan was not involved in any trades today. But on Monday, the team traded top prospect
Danick Gauthier to St. John for excellent offensive
blueliner Alex Grant. This is
Shawinigan's year, as next year, many of the team's best players will be professionals, but I just don't think they will go all the way.
Drummondville on the other hand, has been very active the past few days, and is my pick for the Q this year. Today, the
Voltigeurs continued to stockpile talent. The prize this day was
netminder Marco
Cousineau, who is so much better than his mediocre stats. Yesterday it was Chris
DiDomenico. This team was already stacked offensively. Now they have put a couple of other pieces together and will be formidable going forward.
Moncton sent prospect Tyler
Noseworthy to
Victoriaville today, and got prospects Joey Dillon and Mitch Morgan last week, but generally have not done much.
Neither has Quebec, which is right behind the top three teams. With 64 points in 41 games, the
Remparts have two games in hand on
Shawinigan, and only three points separate the teams. No trades today for Quebec, but on Monday, Quebec traded for
defenceman Alexandre Neron, who will be a huge player along the
blueline for the the
Remparts. It was worth giving away Quebec's first and third round picks for Neron, who is in his second year of NHL Entry Draft eligibility.
Cape Breton is not out of the race to win the President's Cup either. No trades today, but over the last two weeks, the team got a tough guy in Brad
Tesink, and good
blueliner Michael Ward (but to get Ward, the Screaming Eagles had to give up first round draft pick Sam Finn to
Lewiston). In an interesting trade that may work out extremely well for Cape Breton, the team traded Jeremy
Gouchie to Montreal in exchange for Taylor
MacDougall.
Rimouski is loading up for the Memorial Cup. Today's trades included the Oceanic, who got
Maxime Ouimet in exchange for bunch of draft picks and rookie
netminder Francois
Lacerte. Earlier this week,
Rimouski gave up six draft picks, including two first rounders, to get offensive
defenceman Marc-Andre
Bourdon, diminutive goalie Mathew
Dopud and prospect Justin
MacNaughton. Potential
overager Jason
Demers (who is currently playing in the
AHL) was also traded to the Oceanic for a late-round pick.
Rimouski now has seven players drafted by NHL teams, including Logan
MacMillan and Patrice
Cormier, and will be a formidable foe in the Memorial Cup, but the long run up to the playoffs, I just don't see the Oceanic moving atop the league.
On the other end, St. John has sold almost all their good players for picks. The Sea Dogs are stocking up picks for a run in two to three years from now. It should be a tough rest of the season for St. John, but the future looks bright. Both
Acadie-
Bathurst and
Baie-
Comeau are doing the same thing--building for the future.
Val-
d'Or is also at the bottom of the pack, in fact, the
Foreurs are in last place in the entire league, and have been very active over the last two weeks. But instead of stockpiling picks, Val-
d'Or has been trading for a run next year. We shall see how this works out, but it is an interesting strategy.
OHL
There were fewer trades thus far in the
OHL today. In fact, thus far there were only five. Friday at noon is the trade deadline, so you can expect a lot of movement tomorrow as the best teams shore up their ranks.
Today's big trade involved the Windsor Spitfires, who received Ben
Shutron, Josh
Unice, and Scott
Timmins from Kitchener for prospect Brandon Maxwell,
overager Jacob
Lalonde, and three second and third round draft picks. Not enough actually, in my opinion, but it was what the market would bear.
WHL
No trades thus far today, but yesterday Kyle Beach and Mike Alexander were sent packing from Everett to
Lethbridge for the young first round draft pick
blueliner Alex
Theriau, winger Dan
Iwanski, and a first round pick in 2009.
Lethbridge also picked up the 2010 NHL draft eligible Brody
Sutter earlier this week from Saskatoon in exchange for a fifth round pick.
Sutter has not been very effective this
seaosn, but at 6'3", the winger has good potential.
In other trades over the last few days, the
Regina Pats obtained overager Matt Robertson in exchange for another
overager Michael
MacAngus and a 4
th round pick in 2009 from the Prince Albert Raiders.
Also
Prince Albert got Ryan
Kowalski, who has not been very effective this season for the Prince George Cougars, for prospect Robbie
Ciolfi.
The
WHL's trade deadline is Saturday at 4 pm, so several more exchanges are expected between now and then.