Heatley and Spezza

 

*Pending Dany Heatley waiving his no-trade clause*

*UPDATE – Heatley is still not waiving his no-movement clause and now Ottawa is on the hook for a $4 million bonus. Unless they can make up this bonus in the trade with the Oilers AND Heatley comes around, this deal will die. But BOTH teams had agreed to this deal. Full store HERE .*

 

Assuming that Heatley waives his NMC (which he has not, see above note), a trade agreement has been reached with the Oilers for Andrew Cogliano, Dustin Penner and Ladislav Smid.

 

 

*Note – this deal is not official as of 10am ET Thursday, July 2, as Heatley needs to agree to it. My original breakdown is below*

 

The Sens get: an up-and-coming pivot with the potential to be a first liner, or in the case of Ottawa, a "1B". If the team can bring in some wingers to play with Spezza and Cogliano, the two will flourish. Dustin Penner is also a solid contributing third liner with size and 45-point ability – more if he can click with one of the two pivots. Ladislav Smid is a puckmoving rearguard in the same mold as Alexandre Picard or Chris Campoli – right now all three are all potential but little proven.

 

The Oilers get: one of the best left wingers in the game. An elite player who is not only of the same class as Ales Hemsky – but he's much much better than Hemsky. He instantly raises the point totals of a lot of Oilers.

 

Fantasy Players Impacted: Jason Spezza will still bounce back next season, but without Heatley on his line you can slip his outlook from 95 points to 85, if indeed you saw him getting 95 points, which I did. Heatley will still do fine with Hemsky on his line.

 

Shawn Horcoff or Sam Gagner could go through the roof. It would be nice if Horcoff was the pivot because then we could call it the Triple-H line (wrestling reference not intended). Obviously that first-line spot is a winning lottery ticket.

 

Cogliano's value goes way up. He will get a lot more ice time in Ottawa and can hold onto his natural center position.

 

Smid, Campoli, Brian Lee and Picard will battle it out for PP QB. Although at this point it looks as though Smid is not yet ready for such a role, so it will be status quo for that group.

 

Prospect Jordan Eberle should have an easier time of making the team with one fewer skilled pivot holding down a spot.

 

Patrick O'Sullivan just got knocked to the second line, which may hurt his production unless he and Gagner both break out.