I will glady pay you Tuesday...for a hamburger today

Today of course was the NHL trading deadline. As Sean Baligian was saying on his fine morning program this morning, the NHL deadline is the best trading deadline of all 4 major sports. In the NFL nothing rarely gets done. In baseball and basketball it's usually just a lot of hot air with little action. This past July there was a ton of talk about how the Orioles were going to trade Tejada and the Nationals had 5 or 6 good offers for Soriano. Neither of them were moved. Hell, the best move for any team was the tigers acquiring Sean Casey. Last week was the NBA trade deadline and the biggest name moved was Juan Dixon. Not exactly earth shattering.

But the NHL is different. There are always big names moving. Big names who can either make or break a teams cup chances. And it seems like every year the Red Wings are heavily involved, trying to find a piece to lead us to the promise land.

In 1997 the Wings aquired Hall of Fame defenseman Larry Murphy and the results were spectacular. Murph became a great addition helping out young defensemen Nicklas Lidstrom and Vladamir Konstantinov and helped lead us to our first Stanley Cup since 1955.

In 1999 the Wings made their biggest splash ever at the trade deadline acquiring 4 top name players. Wendel Clark, Chris Chelios, Ulf Samuleson and Todd Gill were brought in with hopes of 3peating as Stanley Cup Champions. This one didn't work out so well. Clark and Samuleson were way past their prime and Gill just wasn 't the right fit and the wings ended up losing in the 2nd round to Colorado.

In 2001 the Wings re-acquired Igor Larionov from Florida. The presence of "The Professor" was missing in the locker room in the years between Stanley Cups and Igor was welcome back with open arms. It still didn't help much as the wings were bounced in the first round to the lowly Kings in 6 games.

In 2002 the Wings were pretty low key just acquiring Jiri Sleger from the Thrashers. This team was loaded as it was and didn't need ANY help as they cruised to their 3rd Stanley cup in 6 years and their most dominant playoff performance to date

In hopes of repeating in 2003, at the deadline the wings made 2 big moves. They picked up Mathieu Schneider from the Kings and Jason Woolley from the Sabres. And while Schneider ended up being a great pickup and is playing great hockey today for the wings, it wasn't enough then as they were embarrassed by the Mighty Ducks in a crushing 4 game sweep in the first round.

In 2004, the Wings picked up Mr. Personality himself Robert Lang from the Kings. While a great goal scorer, Lang wasn't, and still isn't, known for his fiery personality. He contributed to the Wings in the regular season a little bit in the playoffs, but they were still bounced by Calgary in the 2nd round thanks to great goal tending by Mikah Kiprisoff.

Last year they were pretty quiet on their way to yet another dominating regular season and YET another terrible postseason. So maybe this year wing hopefuls are wishing for maybe a little more like 1997 and 2002 and not exactly like 1999 an d 2003.

The wings have made 2 deals of significance both improving them if everything works out in the end. First off they traded Jason Williams for forward Kyle Calder. Basically they were trading the same guy for each other. But the wings feel Calder's upside is a little bit more high then J-Will's. Calder's stats weren't really pretty in Philly, but who's stats are when your playing for that TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE team? I think a fresh start for the kid might be just what the doctor ordered for him to jump start back into 2004 form.

The other, bigger, deal was the wings aquiring Todd Bertuzzi. Now let me preface to say, before the Steve Moore incident, I was a big Todd Bertuzzi fan and have always wanted him on the team. This trade, IF Bertuzzi is healthy, could be just what the doctor ordered for the Red Wings. Someone tough up front other who can scare the opposing side into keeping away a little bit from Pavel and Hank. But there is that big IF up there. IF he stays healthy. Right now the wings are projecting him to be ready to play with a couple weeks left in the regular season which should work out well to get him back into playing shape in time for the playoffs.

Now I know all about the hit on Scott Moore. Yes it was a cheap shot. Yes it's cheap to hit a guy from behind. BUT, Todd has done his time. He missed the last quarter of 2004. He did his time. I'm sure he gets up every morning and wishes that never happened. So people have got to cut him some slack on that. I'm sure there are going to be some media types who will be all up in arms and get on their high horse and write about "How COULD the wings bring in someone so despicable????" Of course, it will be the first thing these columnists will have wrote about hockey in 3 years, but that's besides the point. Point being, he's done his time and if he comes in during the playoffs and becomes the impact player the Wings hope he becomes, then I'm all for the trade. They gave up next to nothing to get him so it was worth it right there. Watching what Atlanta gave up for Thachuk and San Jose gave up for Geurin, the Wings got off fairly light.

On a side note, this whole thing about Tkachuk and Geurin RETURNING to the Blue next year is a load of crap. The NHL will HAVE to step in on this whole rent-a-player thing. What could stop say, a team that is out of the playoffs making a deal with another team and saying 'ok, you can have him for 3 months, but we are going to bring him back in the beginning of next year' The NHL has got to put a stop to that now. Of course, somebody's got to pull Gary Bettman's head out his a$$ first.

So all in all it was another interesting trade deadline. Did the wings get better? Yes definitely, but so did the wings top 3 threats in the west. So it'll be an interesting couple weeks leading up to the playoffs. Once in nthe playoffs, while these 2 trades will be a factor, the deciding factor lies on 3 people. Mr Hasek and our blue chipper lines mates Hank and Pavel. If Hasek can play like he did in 2002, and Hank and Pavel can channel some toughness not yet seen from them in the playoffs, there's no reason not to believe the wings can go further in the playoffs then they have since the golden days of 5 years ago.