Hockey Thoughts: O'Captain, Bye Captain!

I have a whole host of things to blog about today, and might not get to them all, so I felt it was appropriate to start the day with the biggest of news...yesterday the Preds traded Captain Jason Arnott to the New Jersey Devils and Dan Hamhuis to the Philadelphia Flyers.  (Thus making the Flyers even more so the "used to be Preds.")  While I am not sad to see either go, I am slightly more upset over Arnott than Hamhuis and I'm sure this runs contrary to the feelings of 99.9% of Preds fans out there today.

It became clear mid-way through the season that something was up with Arnott.  I started to get suspicious that he would be gone at the trade deadline but then his attitude seemed to improve and his play got better so I attributed his mid-season slump to his general moodiness.  I've never seen a hockey player who is so "delicate" in his mood swings as Arnott.  I never liked him as Captain, and this season I was 100% in favor of demoting him from that position.  Even though he seems to get angry from time to time, his on-ice attitude is typically very laxidasical and I never saw any evidence of real leadership come from him.  Overall he was inconsistent and remains one head injury away from retirement.  When he was on, though, he was on and could score, be in the right places at the right times and lay out some killer hits.  Too bad that was only a few games a year.  I didn't necessarily want to see him go, but he was one of the highest paid players on the team and didn't deserve a contract extension--something he basically demanded at the end of this season.  In a way, he's turning into Brett Favre, not wanting to admit his best playing days are behind him and looking into the best escape route/retirement plan.  He obviously wants to keep playing so he's going to have to do that elsewhere.  I would have been more in favor of clearing cap space by trading Legwand, and keeping Arnott for the remaining year on his contract, without an extension and without him wearing the C on his jersey.  But if he was going to be unhappy with that deal in any way, which he was, then its best he move on.  Bye Jason, we loved you while we had you, until this year when most people (but not me) started to hate you. 

As for Hamhuis, I also thought he was leaving at the deadline, particularly once I figured out Arnott was not.  I'm assuming, although I have no corroborating evidence, that he did not get dealt because his price is too high.  He stated he was "looking forward" to free agency in a few days, I'm assuming because he thinks he should be paid more than he is now and Nashville would have ever given him.  Good luck.  If that were the case, he'd have been skating in someone else's jersey since February.  Nashville got one of their mistake trade players back (aka good prospects we lost to get Forsberg), and they don't have to deal with any more hassles regarding offers approaching July 1.  Now that's Philly's mess to contend with.  Even though most Preds fans think he's a solid D-Man, I disagree.  Between him and Klein (who we have for two more years, gross) it is hard to say who was the weakest link on our D-Line.  I'm going with Hamhuis, because at least Klein has inexperience to blame, and when the two were paired together it was like watching Looney Toons on Ice out there.  Hamhuis used to be good, so I don't know whether to blame him or the coaching (very likely that), but he's not the player he was two, or even one, season ago.  Stupid mistakes, scoring on our own goalie once (blatantly) and two or three times (probably) does not a good defenseman make!  He might have been trying too hard to prove his value this year, going into Free Agency, but he failed miserably and should have just stuck to his game.  I am not, in the least, sad to see him go.  Bye Dan, so long, good riddance.  The only thing that sucks there is it makes it harder to root for the "Used to be Preds," because at least I like the other former-Preds players on Philly, and I do not like him.

Aside from what the Preds will be paying the two guys they picked up in the trades, which given their experience, shouldn't be too much between the two, they cleared out at least $6 million in salary space, more than enough to bring in a solid scorer.  Maybe having someone who actually scores on the reg will push Legwand back to his A-game.  He's tended to score more when he has serious competition on the team, which he lacked severely this season (and he had the worst numbers of his career). 

As for who should be Captain, my first impulse is Sully.  He's been around, he's paid his dues, and he's certainly a veteran and has the necessary personal qualities to be a good Captain.  The team is obviously going in a different direction, towards youth and away from experience, but that is just one more reason to allow the remaining team veteran to wear the C.  Besides, this is likely Sully's last year on the team, and in hockey period, so he would be Captain for just this season then they could turn it over to one of the young bucks, which seems to be the Captain trend du jour since Crosby was handed the reigns three years ago in Pittsburgh.  I had a brief moment last night where I preferred Weber to Sully, but Weber can step up when Sully's done.  My vote is with Sully 100%, but I will not be surprised if it is Weber.  I don't think there's anyone else on the team that they would even be considering, so I'm not even going to discuss any other players as possibilities.

Now I need to spend the next few days looking at the list of potential free agent scorers that will probably hit the market and take some guesses as to where that $6 million will be spent.