Who saw this coming?
Sergei Fedorov is now a Blue Jacket.
I think the saddest part of all of this is that it's a personality dump disguised as a salary dump disguised as a trade.
I don't think it's any secret that Mightiest Duck Brian Burke wasn't a big Fedorov fan. His huge salary presented the ultimate way to get rid of Fedorov without saying it was a personality thing.
Now as desperate as Columbus is for talent, I can't imagine Fedorov will stay there. I can't imagine he'd be happy playing in Ohio. If I were a betting man, I'd wager Fedorov ends up in a bigger market.
With his brother in New York, that kind of makes sense. But with the Rangers playing so well, I doubt they would disrupt the chemistry.
I'm curious if St. Louis or Chicago could swing Fedorov's salary.
I'm guessing the Ohio-based Hockey Poobah will be all over this.

I'm so sorry. A site is stealing this feed so I've been forced to truncate it until I figure out a plan B.
I realize this is a huge annoyance. I'm an RSS person. I believe it should all be in the reader. I hate clicking out of the reader to read a post.
It's just that I don't believe anyone has a right to syndicate my content without my permission.
If you're an RSS guru (obviously, I'm not), drop me a line if you can think of any workarounds (puck -at- popupdate dot com).
Thanks so much!

With the holidays right around the corner, I can't imagine a better gift for a hockey fan than an Oiler championship banner.
The old ones are getting ratty so the Oilers want to replace them and auction them off for charity.
And yes, I am hinting that a reader might want to buy me one.

The NHL is expected to fine LA Kings President Tim Leiweke for predicting the Penguins are going to move to Kansas City.
I'm not cynical, but a lot of people were a bit surprised when the Penguins ended up with this season's number one draft pick. Would the NHL rig the draft to make a franchise more attractive to another city?
I don't know. But there sure are some great subplots here.
Also from Bruce Garrioch: St. Louis might want to move Doug Weight and Ottawa and Columbus might be interested. Because St. Louis has too much talent right now, right?
Garrioch also says the Canucks are trying to move Sami Salo, which I find surprising, since he's a pretty big factor on their power play. I mean, I guess you could move Salo if Ed Jovanovski promises to never, ever take a day off, but failing that, it might be nice to have a second person working the point.

Mike Lupica checks in on Ranger coach Tom Renney.
It might not seem like a big deal, but columnists don't usually talk hockey here.
How about those Rangers, though? They've been a real joy to watch. On paper, the team seems very top heavy, with some elite European players and some blue-collar North Americans. But the reality is, there's a lot of balance among the forwards. A shocking amount of balance. Everyone plays defense and everyone keeps play going in the offensive zone. The team's big weakness?
An uneven defensive corps. But nothing a veteran defenseman or two can't help.
This is the first time in years you can talk about the Rangers in the post-season and people don't look at you like you're delusional.