...okay, so the Sens haven't lost their mind. But maybe they have.

I don't know where to begin on this one.
I guess I'll begin with the particulars, which, by now, we should all be aware of.

TO ATLANTA: Marian Hossa and defenseman Greg de Vries

TO OTTAWA: (the rights to)Dany Heatley

Upon his "trade", Heatley promptly signed a 3-year, $13.5M deal with the Sens. Apparently, Heatley had asked Thrashers suits for a trade. Boy did they ever come through.

This is good for Ottawa in that they got out of that absurd contract they signed with Maid Marian. They'll save $4.5M over three years. They'll also be free of the completely ludicrous $2.28M they would have had to pay de Vries this season. By the way, I REALLY need help with that one. Why in the world were they paying him that kind of money? His offensive game isn't that great, and his +/- isn't even what I would call "impressive". Granted, I don't have any exposure to the guy, so I don't know what intangibles he brings to the ice, but on paper, that looks like WAY too much money for that dude.

Now, it seems, the shoe is on the other hand. Atlanta might soon find themselves sandwiched between a rock and ... another rock. With one undisclosed salary and Ilya Kovalchuk still unsigned, they are in for $30,642,000. Assume that Kovalchuk gets one of those idiotic escalating salary contracts for, say, $5M this year and +$.75M for the next two years. I think it would be safe, at any rate, to assume that he'll get $5 this year. So they'll be somewhere in the $36M neighborhood. They're also gonna need to sign another netminder. One rumor I heard today indicated that Pasi Nurminen is going to be forced into retirement by knee surgery. I don't even remember where I read it, but even that source was skeptical because their source was an article written in Finnish, which they had a very rough translation of.
Nonetheless, the Thrashers got stuck with Hossa's idiotic salary and de Vries' absurdity. If they're smart, they'll sign Kovalchuk to a single season, or perhaps to a multi-year deal where the salary doesn't escalate.

The Sens suits apparently haven't been reading this blog. Never mind that they know what they're doing (and have better things to do) and I don't, but I've been repeatedly warning them about these stupid escalating salaries. Heatley's deal is for $3.5M this season with a raise of $1M each of the following two seasons. Why not just offer him $4.5M/season for three years? Or do something else so it isn't so back-heavy. I'm not saying Boy Wonder won't be worth it, but I just really hate those back-heavy contracts.

Everyone knew that the Sens had to do something, and it had to be sooner than later. I don't think anyone expected this, though. Is it good for them? Obviously, they're saving a pile of money, so it's good for the wiggle room. I don't know if they're going to be pleased, though, with the drop-off in offensive numbers from Hossa to Heatley. That's right... I said drop-off. I don't think Heatley will ever be the same as he was before the accident. Although he had good numbers in the games he played coming back last season, he just didn't look the same. I predict that for a number of reasons, he'll only be able to put up about 55 points this season, whereas Hossa will put up about 85.

Despite all of that, I do think that it was a good thing. They had to get rid of Hossa, and better to get a proven star right now than a few crapshoot draft picks down the road.

Will this put an end to the "Wayne Redden on the block" rumors? Yes.

What about Bondra? Now they've got the cap room to re-sign him.

The point that folks need to get from this is that the madness has to stop somewhere. The Flyers were forced, by cap issues to make a really incredibly bad trade (J-Ro for a bag of pucks). And now this trade was necessitated by Ottawa's own cap issues. There's no doubt that they got the short end of the stick on this one. I might even make that argument if it was Hossa-Heatley straight up, but de Vries makes it decidedly in Hotlanta's favor. Teams have got to spend more responsibly and to cut it out with these absurd escalating salary contracts.

This post sucks. Sorry.