Trades and Acquisitions

Ok, so let's go back a couple weeks to NHL Draft Day (aka June 26). Towards the beginning of the live draft coverage and minutes after Scott Niedermayer told Bob Murray he was planning on returning, it was announced that the Ducks traded Chris Pronger (sometimes referred to as Captain Elbows, but to most Ducks fans, he was a merely God-like defenseman) to Philadelphia for the flying-forward Joffrey Lupul and up-and-coming D-man Luca Sbisa. Yeah, spellcheck really doesn't like me right now. Anyway, I was seriously disappointed by this as were most of the friends I have who are also Ducks fans. In fact, most of us still haven't fully digested the fact that Pronger won't be on Honda Center ice this coming season.

However, the spirits of Ducks fans everywhere were raised a bit the following morning when the big headline was that the veteran fan favorite Teemu Selanne would be returning for yet another season. However, this was not such a big surprise considering Niedermayer and Selanne love playing together. I spotted this coming a mile away as I'm sure most fans did. The two kind of go hand-in-hand.

The Ducks then stayed under the radar for awhile, no big deals done or players lost. They resigned Todd Marchant and Brian Salcido. However, on July 6 the Ducks lost another great defenseman in Francois Beauchemin to Toronto and former Ducks GM Brian Burke. Despite claims made by current Ducks GM Bob Murray that they needed to fill in the defensive void, they instead signed a future Hall-of-Famer center Saku Koivu. Koivu and Selanne are longtime friends and Finnish teammates. It is believed that Koivu will center the second offensive line and play alongside Selanne for the majority of the upcoming season. This was a great move offensively for the Ducks, but it's hard to look at the good when so much else seemed to be missing.

I'll continue writing about the defensive void later. Hope you enjoy your day!

xoxo