After the completely asinine, head scratching camp invite of Daniel Carcillo, Friday, the real fun began for all of us crazy basement dwelling bloggers in Chicago.
It quickly spread like wildfire that the PTO that Carcillo had signed was actually going to blossom into an actually NHL deal to return to the Blackhawks. This, in fact, came to fruition when the Blackhawks announced the one year, league minimum ($550K), deal for Gorilla Salad. This means that instead of Brandon Mashinter being the Blackhawks resident fist magnet, Dan Carcillo will be assuming that position as well as notorious league miscreant. Just peachy.
If that wasn't enough to get your blood pressure abnormally high, the real fireworks went off Saturday morning. The fact that Leddy was scratched Friday in New York led everyone to assume that there was a deal in place, and that there was. Saturday morning it was announced that Nick Leddy and Kent Simpson had been traded to the New York Islanders for T.J. Brennan, Ville Pokka and the rights to restricted free agent goaltender Anders Nilsson. That induced a"Pokka Party":
The word on Brennan is that he is a Rundblad type. High potential, after being drafted by Buffalo, but never reached full potential. He was last year's AHL Eddie Shore best Defenseman winner with the Totonto Marlies, putting up some pretty gaudy numbers. That's all fine and well until you look who won that award in 06-07, Sheldon Brookbank. Case closed, your honor. He was immediately put on waivers to be sent to Rockford the minute he was acquired, but I'll get into that a little more later.
Ville Pokka-Face is one of the Isles, sort of, top prospects. Pokka is a smallish, bizzare looking Finnish defenseman that was named "The best players in the world you've never heard of", last April. He may turn out to be a real find at some point. There was a piece written about him back in 2012 before he was drafted, with high praise. I guess we'll see how this one pans out.
The third player the Hawks acquired was a real wild card in rather large RFA goalie Anders Nilsson, who is currently playing in the KHL. I doubt we ever see this guy in Hawks colors, but I have been wrong plenty. He's 6'5" and 220 lbs, which is ideal in today's NHL. I can only assume that the thought of playing in NY was just too much to bear. If the Blackhawks can talk him into coming back for North America he might be a future backup in two years, when Raanta leaves for a chance at a starting jobs somewhere else.
For more on this trade and the Blackhawks impending season opener, Check out the this weeks Puckin Hostile Shoutcast, recording soon.