Iginla Rumors Persist

My expectation level and threshold of pain is already so low. This wouldn’t surprise me. The whole Sutter family is what needs to be traded from that organization.

It’s been on The Hockey News website, Duhatschek speculated on Monday, ESPN said LA was asking, but thinking for the trade deadline. Then, his ice time was reduced somewhat the other night against Detroit, probably in an attempt to give him a chance to play against their bottom feeders – then the speculation started to pick up.

This would represent a complete about face from what they did over the summer. Bringing back Jokinen and Tanguay, hanging on to Staios and Sarich – all in an attempt to give this group one more shot. I advocated a tear down but did not include Iginla in that because I thought ownership would want to see him here to get 1000 pts and 500 goals. I also thought that it would be difficult for teams to commit to 3 years at $7m for a declining asset.

I also was impressed by Iggy last spring when he said he would look at waiving his NTC if ownership approached him. I actually thought that was a shot across the bow of the other guys with NTC’s – maybe it was – maybe no one bit, and Sutter decided to go the veteran route instead of the rebuild.

The return is pretty good – Schenn looks like a certain NHLer; Lotkinov played pro at 19 but is not very big(Langkow sized). Same with Hickey – you’d better have an excellent skill set to play defense at 185 pounds.

I would feel much better about a potential Iginla deal, if I got the sense that we were about to embark on a true rebuild. However, using the Phaneuf deal as a baseline…I am scared shitless about our return if we do move him. And if we do move him, who the fuck is this hockey team?

Yeah, everyone knows my stance on this. Its stupid as fuck and I will never cheer for this organization again if that were to happen.

I am with Quisp at Jewels from the Crown on this one. If Darryl Sutter made this trade it would be a dead steal for Calgary.

It would be like being on the Boston side of the Kessel trade – if Kessell was past his prime.

That being said, I don’t really see this happening.

So I absolutely support it, since it hurts LA, and of course I want any team that poses an actual threat to the Canucks to be weakened….

/runs away and ducks

That trade is quite a deal for the Flames prospect-wise. I love Iggy and want him to retire as a Flame, but this is how teams rebuild. They move valuable assets before the assets depreciate. The Flames have Iggy as a result of trading Nieuwendyk and Regehr as a result of trading Fleury. It takes HUGE guts for a GM to do it and the backlash from the fans can be immense.

That said, Darryl Sutter has positioned this team as good enough to compete for a playoff spot and a reasonable playoff run. It would be admitting defeat pretty early to trade away the team’s best offensive threat with the season not even one quarter complete.

While I’m normally quick to disregard anything from Hockey Buzz, the fact that others are reporting on this too makes it….interesting.

I love Iginla. I’d love to see him retire as a Flame. Hell, even if traded he still might. But the fact is, the franchise comes first for me. If trading Iginla means we get multiple blue-chips plus a 1st rounder and start the rebuild- please: do so. Fact is, I want Calgary to be competitive again and I want Iginla to have a shot at a Cup; the Flames being competitive and Iginla winning a Cup can only coincide if they happen separately. To me, this is a Ray Bourque situation, and that’s how it’ll stay.

If this trade is a real possibility, pull the trigger. Pull it hard.

So, if we do move our beloved captain, who else would have the cap room/assets to make a deal like this work.
On first blush, I can maybe see Philly (assuming Carter involved for cap reasons and I would love to see him there if he has to go anywhere), St. Louis, L.A. as possible front-runners.
A few wild-cards though maybe. Carolina has a lot of young talent in the system and aside from Staal/Ward don’t have a lot of money tied up…internal cap may prevent a move like this though. Nashville maybe as well. A Colin Wilson/Jon Blum/rights to Radulov package would interest me.
All kind of pie in the sky stuff…but interesting nonetheless, to me anyhoo. Anyone else have some ideas/possible fits?