Well, with the trade deadline only a hop skip and a backcheck away, I figure I might as well give you my choices on what I would do if I were GM. With Foppa being pulled off the table, I think this is what I would do. Now, don’t get me wrong, it looks nice on paper for us, but while I tried to make these deals as fair as I think possible, it takes 2 to tango, and the other GM could laugh at you for some of these proposals.
Its just my guesstimations
These 3 trades are designed to be done in conjunction (ideally) however any of the 3 would be ok with me even by themselves.
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To New York
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To Anaheim
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Bobby Ryan
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Jaromir Jagr or Brendan Shanahan
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Oilers 2008 First Round Draft Pick
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Rangers 2008 First Round Draft Pick
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Rangers 2008 Second Round Draft Pick or Reasonable Secondary Prospect Request
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To New York
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To Atlanta
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Marian Hossa
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Lauri Korpikoski
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Garnet Exelby
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Mike Sauer
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A choice of: Nigel Dawes or Petr Prucha or Ryan Callahan
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A choice of: Marek Malik or Paul Mara
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A 2009 Second Round Draft Pick
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To New York
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To Colorado
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John-Michael Liles
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Al Montoya
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Conditional 2008 Draft Pick (TBD by GMs, obviously relatively high considering what we have to give up)
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A choice of: Nigel Dawes or Petr Prucha or Ryan Callahan (depending on the previous trade)
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A choice of: Marek Malik or Paul Mara (depending on the previous trade)
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The purpose of these 3 trades is to add offensive and defensive stability this year (Hossa, Liles, Exelby) while getting, in essence, 2 blue chip prospects. Build for the future, without sacrificing the now.
Again though, it takes 2 to tango, and I am under no delusions that these trades would go through without a problem.
Let us assume that the players traded are Shanahan, Prucha, Callahan, Malik, and Mara (along with the prospects mentioned). In theory our lineup could look like this in 5 days…
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Sean Avery
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Brandon Dubinsky
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Jaromir Jagr
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Nigel Dawes
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Scott Gomez
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Marian Hossa
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Martin Straka
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Chris Drury
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Marcel Hossa
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Ryan Hollweg
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Blair Betts
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Colton Orr
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| Michael Rozsival | Marc Staal |
| Fedor Tyutin | Dan Girardi |
| John-Michael Liles | Garnet Exelby |
With the following prospects still in the cupboard…
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Alexei Cherepanov
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Bobby Ryan
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Bobby Sanguinetti
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Stamkos/Doughty/Whoever you take with the Oilers pick
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Which, in essence are 4 bluechip prospects, in addition to Bourret, who may turn out to be a bluechipper himself.
There is a method to this madness, which is to increase the upper end of our prospect pool, and prepare this team for life after Jagr/Straka/Shanny, while still making a serious run this year.