Joe Sakic Announces Retirement; Canadiens Now Rushing To Trade For Him

Joe Sakic officially announced his retirement from the NHL after a 20-year career with the Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche franchise. In response to the news that the aging veteran has deemed himself no longer fit to continue playing professional hockey, the Montreal Canadiens have instantly rushed to trade for the retired forward.

“I know he’s not gonna be playing,” said Canadiens GM Bob Gainey, “But if we can just somehow add Joe Sakic’s gigantic cap hit to our numbers, it would be the perfect culmination to our offseason of ungodly spending.”

Gainey added, “If we can give up a decent young player or two in this deal, all the better. Maybe Louis LeBlanc, the dude we just drafted? Ehh…he’s still pretty untested. Hopefully we can throw in more.”

The Los Angeles Kings are also rumored to be interested in Sakic’s services.

“I don’t care if he plays,” said Kings GM Dean Lombardi. “I don’t even expect Ryan Smyth to be healthy either, quite frankly. But we got a bunch of money lying around, so I was just like, these dudes are veterans, let’s get their names on our roster and they can, I don’t know, lead stuff.”

ESPN’s Scott Burnside reports that the Rangers may also be interested, but their rumored 6-year, $38 mil contract offer to Sakic would put them well over the salary cap, unless they’re able to move Wade Redden to Montreal. GM Glen Sather commented, “It all depends on which totally retarded avenue Montreal decides to go down next, but we’re extremely optimistic.”

Rob Scuderi Signs With Kings, And You Will Never Hear His Name Again

I really like Rob Scuderi. His contributions to the Pens’ 2009 Cup Run were absolutely irremovable, if unquantifiable, and he rose to the occassion as the Pens’ most consistent blueliner against elite opposition at a time when the rest of the Penguins’ defensive corps was anything but reliable.

That being said, there was no way the Penguins were going to match the L.A. Kings’ 4 year, $13.6 million offer for Scuderi, nor should they have; Scuderi is a solid but utterly replacable player, and in current NHL salary-cap economics, doling out a $3.4 million annual cap hit for four years on a 30-year-old who before March of this year was viewed as no better than a 4th or 5th defenseman with zero offensive skills is severely inadvisable.

Remember how irreplacable Brooks Orpik seemed after the ’08 Cup run, particularly after all the stupid contract-inflating sportswriter columns about “The Shift?” The Pens ended up signing him to a 6-year deal that certainly doesn’t look painful now but also doesn’t seem entirely necessary; that’s the inflated price you’ll always have to pay for a player entering UFA status off the best two months of hockey they’ve ever played. Rob Scuderi is an ok NHL defenseman, but even excepting the Pens’ cap situation, he’s simply not worth that much money.

The St. Louis Blues made a mistake when they envisioned Jay McKee — a 28-year-old defensive defenseman coming off his most prominent season in 2006 — as the instant answer to all their defensive woes, signing him to a 4-year, $16 million contract that ended up being a disaster and which was recently cut short with a buyout. I surely wish Scuderi more success in L.A. than McKee had with the Blues, but the situations aren’t entirely dissimilar; Scuderi is two years older than McKee was at the time, both had showed little indication of offensive ability, and Scuderi’s reputation was largely bolstered by his team’s strong season in his UFA year (McKee’s Sabres won 52 games and fell a game short of the Cup Finals in ’06.)

Different situation, different results? Maybe. But I’ll happily allow another team to pay Scuderi’s contract while we find out.