Gabby And The Goon

The Stealth's run continued yesterday with the fabulous signing of Marian Gaborik, sniper extrodinaire, and then splashed with the signing of the ultimate Goon of Hockey, Donald Brashear. Win some, lose some. Fortunately the win here is overpowering and the loss is minimal. Barring injuries, Marian Gaborik is the best option that was available for the Rangers. Now we need a center, to get him the puck. Looking at the Rangers centers on the roster tells me they have to go out and get a center whose prime roll will be to pass the puck to Gabby.

As for Brashear, I guess after Orr left for Toronto the Rangers felt a need to toughen up. Well Brashear does that. What else he can do is questionable though to be fair Orr averaged about 4 minutes a game and its tough to perform on 4 minutes a game. Maybe Tortorella will give the guy more ice time. Surely Gaborik will be getting lots of ice time. Maybe Brashear will ride shotgun for Gabby.

Anyway, there is still plenty of time to shore up the center position and the Stealth seems to be on a roll right now so let's not stand in his way. At least we have our sniper, now let's fill in the rest of the ranks or is it blanks? It's a good start.

The Stealth Awakens

Awakening from his season long slumber the Stealth actually pulled off a great trade, swapping under achiever and over priced Scotty Gomez for under achiever and under priced Chris Higgins. Higgins had an excuse, missing 25 games due to injuries. He had 12 goals and 11 assists in 57 games. Gomez in twenty more games than Higgins only posted 16 goals though he did rack up 42 assists. The big factor however, and one that will probably factor in other deals was money. Salary to be exact and salary cap especially. Gomez is making around $7.4 mil and Higgins is at $1.7 mil. That's about $5.7 in beer money to throw around on some free agent. As added bonuses, Higggins is three years younger and hails from Smithtown, Long Island.

There were four other players in the deal, two from each team. The Rangers gave up forward Tommy Pyatt, who played in Hartford last year and defenseman Michae Busto who played for the Easter League Charlotte Checkers. The Rangers get defensemen Pavel Valentenko of the Dynamo Moscow of the KHL and the prize of the youngsters in Ryan McDonough, who played for University of Wisconsin, is twenty years old and was considered the number one defensive prospect for Montreal. Bob Gainey is truly gambling that Gomez is the center he desperately needs to contend for the Cup. Good luck!

So a good start for the Stealth but there is a long free agency in store. Let's not overpay for Heatley. Stay away from Marian Hossa and let's try to dump Rozsival and Redden.