NHL Trades & Hirings

Today the Ottawa Senators and Boston Bruins swapped players. The Sens sent LW Peter Schaefer to the Bruins for RW Shean Donovan. This move frees up some extra cash for the Senators so they are able to sign some of their RFA's including G Ray Emery. Donovan will bring some veteran leadership to the Senators and some 3rd line grit. While Schaefer gives the Bruins a much needed scoring winger. So all in all both teams benefited from this deal.

Also today the New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes swapped players. The Rangers traded C Matt Cullen who was with the Hurricanes during their Stanley Cup championship season back to Carolina for D Andrew Hutchinson, F Joe Barnes and a 2008 3rd round draft pick. The Hurricanes desperately needed a 3rd line center after Trevor Letowski and Josef Vasicek failed to fill the spot last season and Cullen couldn't be more to fill that spot, "Certainly after they signed Gomez and Drury I thought there might be a chance of me being moved, and if I was going to be moved I really wanted it to be back to Carolina. So I'm thrilled." said Cullen. While on the Rangers side they get some much needed depth for their blueline with Andrew Hutchinson. All in all I think the Hurricanes got the better part of the deal, simply because Matt Cullen is an ideal 3rd line center in my mind and he will make the Hurricanes better.

The New Jersey Devils have also found a new head coach. On Friday the Devils announced the hiring of former Red Deer Rebel GM and Head Coach Brent Sutter. This will be Sutter's first head coaching job in the NHL, but from world junior championships etc, he was the best rookie coach that any NHL team could hire. Sutter coached the Rebels to the Memorial Cup in 2001 and as everyone knows coached the Canadian World Junior Team to back-to-back gold medals. Sutter has also won two Stanley Cup championships as a player with the New York Islanders. I think this is a great hiring for the Devils and before the hiring of Mike Keenan as the Flames new head coach, I wondered if Brent Sutter would come here and be the head coach with his brother and our genius GM Daryl Sutter. Brent Sutter will do just fine with the Devils in my mind, he is a awesome coach and seems to get the best out of his players. Even with the loss of C Scott Gomez and D Brian Rafalski, this move will help makes up for those losses for the Devils.