Early Deadline Deals

Derek Joslin (SJ)

So today started out with a few rumors milling about on Twitter. The deal with Kaberle and Boston was almost finalized. Before the Bruins could announce this trade they needed to dump salary to avoid going over the salary cap. At 1:17pm the bruins announced a deal with the Atlanta Thrashers.  Blake Wheeler and Mark Stuart will be heading to hot-lanta and join the play-off race with a different team. In return Boston picked up Rich Peverley and Boris Valabik and reduced their cap space just enough to allow the Kaberle trade.  Wouldn't it be ironic if the 2 former bruins face their old team in the play-offs? Could be interesting.  One deal that happened today that kind of went under the radar was seeing the hurricanes quietly pick up defense man  Derek Joslin  from San Jose in exchange for future considerations.  I had the pleasure of watching Derek on my local rink when he was a part of the royal bank cup winning AURORA TIGERS(2004) in JR A  I watched him grow over the year and become what I thought at the time was a special player. He was never afraid to jump in front of a puck and always helped out on the fore-check. Just a well-rounded  player. You can credit his hard work ethics to his coach in JR Marty Williamson who helped Joslin realize, what it takes to become an NHL'er. Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford says" the development of defense man Brett Carson gave the Hurricanes the flexibility to trade White". Soon after the first trade, Carolina shipped Former Flame, Ian white to San Jose for a 2nd round pick. Noting  the hurricanes look young and poised to make a steady run for the cup in years coming. With all the big defense men being snatched up, before the deadline the Tampa Bay Lighting decided to try their luck with former gold medal winner Eric Brewer from St Louis. I feel this deal was made on the sole purpose that St Louis knew Brewer wouldn't be signing back with them in the off season so they wanted to get SOMETHING for him now.

I just hope they save some trades for deadline day.