Sunday Night Hockey - Iginla Trade

Happy Gordie Howe Day (what? it's his birthday...also, Happy Easter)

The Iginla Trade

The Trade

To Pittsburgh: Jarome Iginla
To Calgary: Kenneth Agostino, Ben Hanowski, 1st round pick (2013)

The What-We-All-Thought-Beforehand Trade

To Boston: Jarome Iginla
To Calgary: Alexander Khokhlachev, Matt Bartkowski, Conditional* 1st round pick (2013)

*The condition was that the Bruins would be able to extend Iginla. I've also heard that there was no condition, so there's that.

From Iginla's Corner

The organization came to him and asked for a list. Iginla's list included Boston, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Chicago. When Boston and Calgary had a deal, the paperwork hadn't gone through, as Iginla's No Movement Clause wasn't officially waived. By the time it was, he narrowed his list to Pittsburgh and...well that was it. Iginla had control of where he wanted to go, so it is up to the organization to both comply to his wishes and try to get the best deal from said team(s).

"On the bright side, he goes from having no centers to having two" - says everybody

From Feaster's Corner

It's almost impossible to defend Feaster in this case. The best argument I could think of was that he didn't have to make any trade and just keep Iginla (and hope it didn't backfire come Free Agency, were Iginla could sign anywhere). He was handcuffed into only being able to deal with a couple teams. While the Boston deal would have set up Calgary nicely for any kind of rebuild, a technicality kept that trade from happening. In the end he could only deal with Ray Shero and the Penguins.

What Feaster did have was time. There was still a week to the deadline. Instead of trading Iginla right then and there, he had two options:

1) Talk to Iginla and see if he was willing to keep Boston as an option.

or

2) Attempt to bluff Shero and withhold an Iginla trade until the deadline in an attempt to get more from the Penguins.

In both trades, there was (most likely) going to be a late round pick. The Boston deal got the Flames a guy in Khokhlachev who would be a top prospect in their organization. With Pittsburgh, all they got back were a couple of college kids who are more likely to be organizational depth guys.

All Feaster can do now is move on and try to sell off more players in order to build the Flames future. And count down the days until he's fired, that too.

Lineup Notables

While I save this part for Canadian teams, there is none playing today. However, there is one game that caught my eye, therefore I'll do the notables for that game.

Boston Bruins vs. Buffalo Sabres

The Not Iginla's: Not Iginla (concussion), Not Iginla (knee), and Not Iginla (shoulder) are out. Not Iginla gets the start.
Buffalo: Alexander Sulzer (knee) is out while Thomas Vanek (upper body) is questionable. Ryan Miller starts tonight.