Posted by Kyle Roussel
All Habs
What a day.
I’m at my desk around 4:55 pm, anxiously waiting to skip out for the 5:06 train to catch a 6:30 viewing of Transformers 2. I loved the first, and have been waiting with baited breath for part 2.
Then, breaking news! Oh no! Please – not Vinny!
Could it get worse?
I don’t know, but what I heard left a lump in my throat:
Chris Higgins has been traded to the New York Rangers.
Ok, ok, I can live with that. Higgins was a nice player, but I just couldn’t put a finger on what he was supposed to be. A scorer? A shutdown guy? Who knows.
He’s a restricted free agent so I couldn’t see the Habs getting much in return. A middling draft pick. Then the storm clouds started swirling in my mind…what if Gainey swung a deal for one of the Rangers overpaid dogs in Wade Redden, Chris Drury or the sickest puppy of the bunch: Scott Gomez and his albatross contract?
I had to split for the train before hearing who the Canadiens got in return, but part of me wishes I still hadn’t turned on the radio when I got to my car. Why couldn’t I have just turned on Dave Matthews’ wonderful new cd instead?
Chris Higgins, Ryan McDonagh, Pavel Valentenko and Doug Janik for Scott Gomez and 2 other guys.
I kid you not, I nearly rear ended the car in front of me. It HAD to be a joke. But nope, there was local radio anchor Mitch Melnick scratching his head with TSN’s Pierre McGuire. If I could have turned in to the Hulk, I could have. I could have lived with Scott Gomez and his stupid contract. It’s not quite as long or hideous as Vincent Lecavalier’s. But to give up Ryan McDonagh AND Pavel Valentenko? The Rangers should have thrown in a draft pick just for the favour of taking Scott Gomez off of their books. Instead, Gainey threw a coveted first round pick at the Rangers.
I thought Glen Sather is usually the one to get bent over the barrel with these sorts of deals?
I thought stockpiling youth and prospects was to be used to build your team for the future, not to throw at rivals in exchange for 8 millions dollars of mediocrity. Oh sure, Gomez is a cute player and all. But for 60 points per season, I would have kept Saku Koivu thank you very much.
I truly hope Gainey is looking to parlay this deal in to something else. Immediately.
I’ve always supported Gainey, but this trade makes not one ounce of sense. It does not upgrade the Canadiens at all. In fact, it gives us another small forward with average production, but with an inflated price tag, and our farm is short 2 assets.
If this is the way it goes down, I hope the Molsons have their hand on the trap door button beneath Gainey’s feet because this is getting silly. UFAs walking away for nothing, and now with a golden opportunity to rebuild the team, he’s going to load it with bloated contracts? Enough.
I didn’t want to write, nevermind post this because I’m just so dismayed at this sequence of events, but I always reserve the right to change my mind when and if Gainey decides to fix this colossal brain fart.
Oh well, at least 2.5 hours of robots smashing the hell out of each other helped to distract me.