Still waiting for that dam to break.
The biggest trade so far has been the Alexei Ponikarovsky trade, that sent a top prospect to Toronto and a great linemate for Evgeni Malkin to Pittsburgh. Since then....well, it’s been quiet.
Last year was about the same, with little activity before noon on the East Coast and a high amount of moves made after 1 p.m. What’s been interesting is that supposedly GM’s had been working for two weeks on some deals and just couldn’t wait to get moving once the roster freeze lifted, and yet teams are still feeling each other out.
Truth of the matter is that one monster deal already went down -- Ilya Kovalchuk to New Jersey -- and Tomas Kaberle and Sheldon Souray hold the power to negate a trade made for them. And it looks like a couple of other major moves, involving Dan Hamhuis, Ray Whitney, Aaron Ward, Dwayne Roloson or Tomas Vokoun, are all having issues overcoming either salary cap issues or the asking price just isn’t right. Or in the case of Whitney, the fact he’s wanting a contract extension first.
Hopefully this day gets more exciting, and if teams really are serious about going after Whitney and Hamhuis then it definitely will be, but so far it’s just posturing from GM’s around the league. Currently, we’ve seen draft picks being tossed away like ex-girlfriends (or boyfriends, we don’t discriminate).