Minor NHL trade – Edmonton has shipped out Ryan O’Marra to Anaheim in exchange for defenseman Bryan Rodney. Neither player has any fantasy upside. Rodney had 11 points in 22 games two years ago in Carolina, and he’s been a solid point-producer in the AHL for the last while.

Frozen Pool analysis on Spezza’s season, from start to finish. Does he end up eclipsing the 90 point mark?

Always a good read – Dobber’s fantasy mailbag for The Hockey News is out.

I guess I have more in common with Jaromir Jagr than I had thought. Both of us are out with the flu right now. While there is no one to replace me, the Flyers have called up Eric Wellwood from the AHL.

While he hasn’t been traded yet, Pavel Kubina is being held out of practices and games by the Lightning until he is. He has a limited no trade clause and needs to submit a list of possible destinations to the Lightning. Kubina was a big part of Tampa Bay’s cup victory almost eight years ago.

My piece on Jordan Schroeder for the Canucks Army is now posted. I take a look at his second professional season, and attempt to project his NHL upside.

How do you value Andrew Ladd? Is he the 59-point player from last season, or the 28-point player from this season (with no goals in over 10 games)?

Jake Gardiner scored a goal for the Leafs last night, and he is averaging close to 23 minutes per game over the past two months.

Cody Franson is quietly on pace for eight goals and 34 points. His play has been inconsistent all season, but he’s delivering some secondary scoring from the back end for the Leafs.

Gabriel Landeskog played almost 24 minutes last night – the game didn’t go to overtime, either. He also had five shots on goal.

Peter Mueller missed the game with a “torso” injury. Not sure what to take away from that…

JS Giguere started the game for Colorado, but he left after injuring his groin early on. Varlamov was really solid in his replacement.

David Booth scored 13 seconds into the game, and he continues to be Vancouver’s most dangerous forward at even strength. The Sedins continue to struggle a bit – both look like they are going through the motions.

Cory Perry scored his 28^th goal in his 57^th game tonight. Last season, he had 28 goals through 57 games. You can't make this stuff up!

Steve Tambellini has a job, somehow. Backhand Shelf, the excellent blog on the Score asks why he is still around.

"It's hard to envy Tambellini's job, given how poor his team is and has been, but he's not making it any easier on himself signing mediocre guys to too-big deals because they're willing to pay him some sort of lip service with respect to seeing some obscured genius the GM is working with while letting mildly-unhappy but immensely talented players — the likes of which Edmonton has no ability to attract — twist in the wind."

I get slogged on by a few Oilers fans (doulos, most notably) for my apparent bias. I admit, I do have a bias – against awful management. In what industry would three consecutive years of utter futility (last place) not only be accepted, but rewarded (contract extension)?

I am working on some stuff for this spring – my updated top 10 keeper league positional rankings, and my 2011-12 Prime Cuts roster.

I am retooling in a keeper league – how eager should I be to trade Zdeno Chara? How many years of solid production does he have left? He's the 12^th best skater according to our stat categories (the usual, plus hits, PIM, plus-minus, etc).

My Rick Nash hunch – Los Angeles for Bernier and Johnson. Gives the Jackets a good #3 defenseman with offense, and a starting goaltender to build around.

Nash doesn't make sense for the Canucks – he makes a ton of money, and the team has a bigger need on the back end (especially on the right side – the Canucks are a Sami Salo injury away from Chris Tanev in the top four).

A look at the projected Art Ross top five:

Malkin – 106 points, Giroux – 93 points, Stamkos – 91 points, Kessel, H. Sedin, Lupul, and a few others at 85. The Sedins have really slowed down over the last five or six weeks. Will be interesting to see if anyone can make a late charge to overtake Geno (doubt it).

Biggest surprise for me – Elias on pace for 80 points. I thought his days as a PPG forward were long over.

Martin Erat is quietly having a strong season, too. On pace for close to 65 points.

The rookie goal-scoring race is very close – Nugent-Hopkins, Henrique, Hodgson, and Read are all within a few goals of each other. Landeskog would be my personal pick for the award, due to his contributions in other areas of the game (and he's still close behind in the scoring race).

I'll have a big CHL/AHL update during my Saturday ramblings. I like to see how things are going in those leagues, especially the AHL – I recently nabbed Cory Conacher for my farm team in one of my keeper leagues. He's tearing it up with Tampa Bay's farm club.

The Ducks are 14-3-3 since January 1^st. Another improbable playoff run? I guess those leaked Bobby Ryan rumors did the trick.

Five goals for Ottawa, and only one point for Erik Karlsson.

Jason Spezza had three helpers for the Sens.

Brian Campbell had a goal last night, in over 30 minutes of ice time.

Scott Clemmensen was yanked after allowing four goals on 16 shots – he was coming off of two very solid starts before the Sens lit him up last night.

Tomas Fleischmann has five points in his last five games.

Seattle sounds really serious about getting an NBA/NHL arena – read this here.

Max Pacioretty is second in the league in goals scored since January 1^st. Malkin is obviously first.

Erik Cole was fantastic for the Habs last night – two points, could have had a few more. Was really playing on the edge physically, which is nice to see from a Montreal forward. I thought Rene Bourque looked good as well. Plays a solid, north-south game.

Emelin had three hits for the Habs, and was a target of the Bruins all night – Thornton took a few runs at him, and Marchand clipped him as well. Emelin's not big, but he hits very, very hard.

Chris Campoli gets absolutely undressed: