Habs Acquire Lang
Dobber Sports
2008-09-13
Montreal has given up on Mats Sundin and have shipped the 2010 second-round pick that they acquired in an earlier trade (Mikhail Grabovski) to Chicago for Robert Lang.
Montreal gets: A third-line pivot who is on the decline, but had his most fruitful years in Pittsburgh playing on a line with current Hab Alexei Kovalev. The team did well in adding some insurance to their top six and are now covered if an injury occurs to an important offensive player. This helps their Stanley Cup hopes, no question.
Chicago gets: rid of salary and a pretty good draft pick. This eases any pressure that was there to trade Nikolai Khabibulin. Now they can keep their goalie tandem into January and even beyond if they wish.
Fantasy Players Impacted: This is where this trade is huge. First, in Montreal While this COULD displace Saku Koivu on the second line and MAY hurt his offensive totals, I think it will be more a 2a and 2b situation, where Koivu remains on a line with Chris Higgins. This move helps Sergei Kostitsyn because he was probably the odd man out of the top six…but now playing on the third line will have it's opportunities.
In Chicago, things really get interesting. The 'Hawks really like Patrick Sharp on the wing with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, so moving him to center is unlikely. This means that they have no second-line center to play with Martin Havlat. Suddenly, long shots Petri Kontiola and Kris Versteeg have a huge opportunity to make the team – with the winner getting upwards of 45 points or even more! Dave Bolland will also get a look there, but he lacks the dazzle of the other two. Still, you can never count him out either. The Hawks made an excellent move freeing up cap space and making room for one of their many youngsters. This could be the most interesting training camp of all the 30 teams.