Deadline chat! It won’t be live streaming, but it will be even more active as everyone jumps in – join myself, Laidlaw and others by clicking this link. The chat is open right now and will run throughout all the action!

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David Legwand has been traded to the Red Wings. Analysis to come.

Tomas Vanek has been traded to Montreal for a second rounder and a prospect. The Islanders, in the end, trade Moulson and a first…for whoever that prospect is. Net result. Analysis to come.

The Avalanche acquire Reto Berra from the Flames. No fantasy analysis on this one, although I find it interesting that the Avs went after him. It indicates that he’ll be the backup next year and perhaps Sami Aitokallio is not ready.

Andrej Meszaros has been traded to Boston for a third-round pick. Already having claimed Potter, the Bruins are shoring up their depth. Meszaros’ presense will hurt Dougie Hamilton’s ice time.

Tim Thomas has been traded to Dallas.

Matt Moulson rumored to be headed to the Wild.

Marcel Goc has been traded to the Penguins – a great depth move and he can play any forward position on the second, third or fourth line.

Edmonton traded defenseman Nick Schultz to Columbus, who lost Ryan Murray to injury indefinitely. 

Brayden McNabb has been traded by the Sabres to Los Angeles

Devan Dubnyk has been traded to Montreal for futures. And Nashville will eat a portion of his salary (which is why he wasn’t claimed off waivers). What this bit of news indicates is that Carey Price is nowhere near returning. Think about it – if he’s back in three or four games, do they make this move? Nope. Think five games or more for Price on the sidelines.

Scotts Gomez and Clemmensen cleared waivers. Trevor Smith cleared waivers.

Chris Phillips has signed a two-year extension with Ottawa. What I like most about this? He has no agent and negotiated for himself. Brilliant. No need to give the agent a cut – he’s still rich and plays where he wants to.

Cory Conacher has been claimed by Buffalo. Analysis up.

Another Cory – this one Potter – has been claimed by Boston. A great depth add, but no fantasy significance.

Rangers have reportedly traded Callahan, a 1st and a 2nd to TB for St.Louis. If so, Callahan would be a rental, as his demands of $6 million per for six years are ludicrous. Analysis up.

Mark Scheifele is out 6-8 weeks with an MCL injury, per TSN. This will likely make the Jets sellers instead of buyers. 

The Kings have reportedly acquired Marian Gaborik. Update – deal is done, analysis up.

Interesting tidbit from Bob McKenzie this morning. Teams have four post-deadline recalls. So you will see some players getting called up today so that one of the four recalls don’t get used up. Justin Peters, Carolina goalie, is an example of that.

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I’m experiencing ramblings overload. So much happened yesterday in the world of hockey that has significant fantasy hockey impact that I’m completely dumbfounded. I don’t know where to begin. Even if I ignore all the transactions that Steve and Mike went over, and ignore the Luongo deal – I still just…stare at the screen, wondering where to start.

I mean, one of the top prospects in hockey – Evgeni Kuznetsov – reportedly hopped on a plane to Washington yesterday…and the article we wrote about it got shoved down the home page. I had to manually push it back up the page a couple of times as the deals kept rolling in. Kuznetsov is ranked 12th in my Fantasy Prospects List, but with this news he absolutely passes Charlie Coyle into 11th and in a points-only league I like him better than Lindholm, too. So a Top 10 prospect.

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So where does the return to action of a Top 5 fantasy goalie, after five months on the sidelines, rank in terms of fantasy news yesterday? Fifth? Pekka Rinne is back and they threw him straight to the wolves – the Pittsburgh Penguins. And 47 minutes into the game he held the Pens to just one goal before he gave up a power-play marker. I’d say that’s a good return. And frankly, I think he’ll be fine and he’ll return to ‘elite’ status. Kudos to those of you who bought low on Rinne back in November when everyone was panicking.

Crosby got three assists – and Brian Gibbons, in what will be his last game with Crosby, got a secondary assist. I say this because the Penguins are landing a player. I don’t like the Kesler idea, unless Sutter goes the other way. But Kesler wouldn’t play with Sid anyway. No, I’m talking about Hemsky or Cammalleri. Maybe Moulson or Vanek, but I’m thinking Hemsky is a great fit. We shall see.

What would they get in Hemsky? This, from last night:

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This is going to get buried. Terrible day to announce this, I meant to announce it Monday in the ramblings but I didn’t have the details yet. The DobberHockey Olympics Pool winners –

Richard O’Dell

Todd Tweedy

Chris Metzger – DobberBaseball writer!

I will set up the Ultimate Fantasy Pack into your account when it’s made available (May 1st). And Officepools will contact you with a coupon code to use for free playoff pool management for your pool!

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Checking in with Michael Del Zotto (I don’t do that as often anymore)…yeah no, still no PP time. Still Weber/Josi and Jones/Ellis. Nothing wrong with that.

What is wrong is the 1:38 of PP time that Craig Smith got. Fisher, Legwand and Horny get  over 4:30. Leading goal scorer, second in points, second in shots.

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Michael Grabner has four points in four games since John Tavares went down. Despite Frans Nielsen being back and no John Tavares, it would seem that the young guns are taking over. Anders Lee also has four points, while Ryan Strome has three.

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Mark Scheifele left the game with an injury. Coach Paul Maurice later said that he would be evaluated Wednesday, but there was a chance he would play Thursday.

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That’s 10 games without a point for Henrik Sedin now. His last point came on January 10.

On the bright side, Canucks fans – at least they made the decision to rebuild quickly. And they acted on that decision immediately. A month ago, ‘rebuild’ wasn’t in the vocabulary. Now Luongo is gone and Kesler is apparently going. But in Toronto and Calgary, they dragged their feet on this decision. By the time the Leafs and Flames made moves to rebuild, even the dumbest fan knew that they should have done it three years earlier. Now, instead of pretending you have a shot at a Cup this year or next…you get the rebuild started.

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Thanks to an empty netter, Nathan MacKinnon’s point streak continues (12 games).

Tyson Barrie has 13 points in his last 12 games.

The Avs keep winning, Varlamov keeps staying healthy – 40 wins folks. Mark it! Who would have thought? He has 20 games left, I’m betting he plays 17 and wins 10. He needs nine.

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Corey Crawford is 6-7-7 in his last 20 decisions.

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Erik Erlendsson, TB beat writer, reported that Marty St. Louis refused to talk to the media last night and he left quickly. Did he play his last game for the Lightning? My guess – no. Trading him makes zero sense.

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Ben Scrivens and Viktor Fasth are the goalies of Edmonton’s future – and I like it. A very underrated tandem who I feel will do as well next year as Reimer/Bernier are doing this year for the Leafs. Scrivens stole the game last night stopping 34 of 36 and although he’s 3-4-1 with the team, his SV% is 0.940. That’s actually better than it was in Los Angeles!

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It looks like Cam Atkinson is the loser in the ‘Gaborik coming back’ lottery. I wouldn’t expect too many points from him unless Gabby is dealt today. Atkinson is talented enough to still chip in a two points every five games, but going forward I don’t see any better than that. Still, that will give him 41 points on the year and a nice building block for 50-plus next season.

Sergei Bobrovsky is 15-4-1 in his last 20 decisions.

Artem Anisimov has goals in four straight and six points in that span. Who benefits from Gaborik and Horton returning, you ask? Put Anisimov on that list. Looks like he could top his career high (44 points) after all.

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Did Martin Brodeur play his last game as a Devil? (further to the above – this Hall of Fame career with one team, playing his last game for that team, is the sixth biggest story of the day? Wow). Typical of Brodeur’s season – he got the win, but the team got it for him. He gave up three goals on 23 shots. The team scored five for him. Brodeur would make an excellent backup for any contender.

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Cory Conacher was in the Ottawa lineup last night despite being on waivers. The Sens are probably looking to sneak him through to the minors, and if someone takes him – well then they lose his contract, which isn’t a bad thing from their standpoint. To them, it’s win-win. But I think Conacher can be a scoring line player in the NHL on most teams. If he’s claimed – grab him. How the Penguins can walk away from this would be beyond me – Conacher makes $925,00. And he can be acquired for free. I know they’re after bigger fish, but they do have a track record of giving these things a go – Zach Boychuk and Chris Bourque spring to mind. But also Pascal Dupuis if you recall was a throw-in and that certainly worked out.

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T.J. Oshie – gorgeous shorty: