Saturday, June 27, 2015

The Wiz Blows into Carolina


2015 2016
To Carolina POS Age G/W P Cap
James Wisniewski D 31 8 34 $5.5 mil
--------------
To Anaheim POS Age G/W P Cap
Anton Khudobin G 29 9 20 $2.25 mil

Lots of moving parts in this deal... okay, well, two moving parts, but plenty of reasons for the moves.

Shortly after the Hurricanes acquired Eddie Lack from the Canucks, they had an even bigger glutton of goaltending to work with and as the Canes gave Lack a chance to be better somewhere else, they were good enough to offer Anton Khudobin the same prospect elsewhere, given it was about his time to do something.

For the Anaheim Ducks, James Wisniewski was the highest paid healthy scratch of the playoffs, as he did not make it into the good graces of the Anaheim coaching staff and he found himself watching from the press box, as his team was eliminated by the eventual Stanley Cup Champions.  There's no doubt, that something had to give.

To be fair, the Ducks didn't need any more goaltending with the big club, as Frederik Andersen and John Gibson are being looked towards as two big pieces to a small puzzle down the line.  One of those two might get the same treatment that both Lack and Khudobin got today, before too long.  It isn't quite understood, who might take the reins in the minors, but this doesn't look very good good for the new acquisition, unless the Ducks are wanting Gibson to continue to make starts in the AHL.

The Hurricanes already have a lot of bodies signed on to the roster, but when you take a good portion of those away, they had cap space to give.  Carolina could certainly take on the contract and the potential of possibly seeing a few more points from the blueline, trying to turn that ship around.  Wisniewski can be a very good hockey pool defenseman and there is a definite potential for ice-time in this deal.


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