It’s been a long old hockey season for those that like their trades … Until today. I was sitting watching TV this morning when someone pointed out to me the names of some Leafs players on the news ticker and that it looked like there had been a trade. I turned on the net and was indeed informed of the blockbuster deal that had taken place between Toronto and Calgary and later Toronto and Anaheim.

The trades:

Toronto acquire defensemen Dion Phaneuf and Keith Aulie along with forward Fredrik Sjostrom from the Calgary Flames in return for forwards Jason Blake, Niklas Hagman, Jamal Mayers and defenseman Ian White.

Toronto acquire goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere from Anaheim Ducks in return for goalie Vesa Toskala and forward Jason Blake.

Thoughts:

Well the Toronto media have proclaimed their city the winner of this deal before a shot is fired in anger by any of these players at their new teams simply because Phaneuf is the biggest name in the deal. They have a point to a degree, the Leafs gave up some players on big salaries who were not producing as much as they might have liked and with the team sitting at the bottom end of the standings and losing on a nightly basis, it makes sense to make changes going forward. Losing a bunch of forwards frees up space for the Leafs to give young players a shot to prove their worth for the rest of the season and getting back a young star like Phaneuf never hurts.

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So the Stanley Cup playoffs have been pressing along at an incredible rate since I last wrote and there has been a lot to talk about. We’ve had more teams eliminated and the shape of the Conference Semi-Final match-ups are now taking shape.

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Normal order was restored to the hockey world last night when Philadelphia finally got their just deserves and beat a team they have been better than throughout, with the exception of game one. Still they find themselves three games to two behind through heading back to Philadelphia this weekend for another must-win game before their own fans in order to force a game seven. But with this huge win last night they got a lot of momentum and a lot of reasons to be confident.

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There is no real official starting point for making trades in the run up to the NHL trading deadline. Unlike football there is no set window, the teams can trade at anytime throughout the season right through until 4 March — this coming Wednesday. Unofficially though today marked the start of the ‘deadline season’ with the first big move. The Pittsburgh offloaded Ryan Whitney to Anaheim for Chris Kunitz and a prospect. It was a strange move in that the Pens only signed Whitney to a five year contract last year, but circumstances have changed, they have salary cap worries and want to do everything possible to keep Crosby and Malkin in the same line-up. Whitney can at least take solace in the fact that he remains a bird in some form transforming from Penguin to Duck.

Whitney is only in his mid-20s and has a lot left to give. He broke into the NHL as a hot prospect, he helped lead the Penguins to the cup final last year, but started this season on the injury reserve list missing a lot of games. His offensive production from the blue-line this season has fell away from previous years and the Penguins have decided to move him on in exchange for a top-six forward.

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Dallas have been absolutely deadly on the powerplay. In game one they scored four powerplay chances that burried the Ducks. Tonight, the Ducks tried to be more disciplined but still took the fair share of penalties going and were punished again. Two of Dallas’ five goals were with the man advantage.

Their ability on the powerplay has allowed them to sweep both games in the Duck pond and will now carry their momentum back to Dallas looking to end this series and the Ducks hopes of defending early.