|
Early today, the LA Kings traded injury-prone
center Jozef
Stumpel and the promising Glen
Murray to the Boston Bruins for star center and restricted free agent Jason
Allison and checker Mikko
Eloranta. This deal is a great one for the Bruins and a decent one for
the Kings. It's hard not to like how Boston made out. They pick up two guys
to play on their top two lines (both former Bruins) and give up only one
player who was on their opening day roster (Eloranta)...and he was on the
3rd line. From the Kings' perspective they have definitely upgraded the top
pivot for Ziggy
Palffy, but they have further weakened a team offense that was
devastated by the loss of Luc
Robitaille over the summer. Nelson
Emerson will probably assume Murray's spot as 2nd line RW and it's
possible that the recently demoted Jaroslav
Bednar will be recalled.
Fantasy Impact: The top line of Adam
Deadmarsh - Allison and Palffy will be one of the best in hockey. The
value of a player like Deadmarsh goes up dramatically. The LA 2nd line
really becomes a who's who of fantasy has-beens. Any one of these players
could score 20 goals, but none of them are likely to help you challenge for
your league championship - although the value of Emerson drastically
increased as he moves from a line of checkers and plumbers to play alongside
guys with actual scoring prowess. In Boston, however, there will be as many
losers as winners. Stumpel will likely center Bill
Guerin and Sergei
Samsonov to start with Murray bumping Scott
Pellerin to the 3rd line to play with Joe
Thornton and Martin
Lapointe. Brian
Rolston and Pellerin owners will definitely be disappointed as those two
players drop to checking line duty. But if you own any of the top 6 in
Beantown you should be ecstatic.
Below are the projected forward lines for each team:
Boston 1 - Sergei Samsonov /
Jozef Stumpel / Bill Guerin
2 - Glen Murray / Joe Thornton / Martin Lapointe
3 - Scott Pellerin / Brian Rolston / Mike Knuble
4 - P.J. Axelsson / John Emmons / Andrei Nazarov Los
Angeles
1 - Adam Deadmarsh / Jason Allison / Zigmund Palffy
2 - Steve Heinze / Bryan Smolinski / Nelson Emerson
3 - Kelly Buchberger / Eric Belanger / Mikko Eloranta
4 - Craig Johnson / Ian Laperriere / Ken Belanger |
