Sundin's Return

With much fan fare, the return of Mats Sundin to Air Canada Center, will be on display Saturday Night. If you've watched TSN, Sportsnet or the Score lately, you already know this since they've been talking about it since the day Sundin signed with the Canucks.

What I am hoping for is that Sundin returns to cheers. Sure all you Leaf fans will tell me "He should have waived his NTC if he really liked Toronto" or "He said he didn't want to be a rental player but he is now" or even the "He represented 10 years of losing in Toronto".

After all those years of Leaf fans saying they hate Sundin or wanted him traded, are you serious? Sundin was the face of the franchise for 13 years, lead the team in scoring every single year (except for 2002-2003 Alex Mogilny), was Toronto's longest serving captain and won the team's first division title since 1938. Oh and he's the team's all-time leading scorer. Needless to say I could go on.

I plead with the Leaf fans to celebrate the return of your team's greatest player. I think that the fans will show the class that is deserved to Sundin, but I understand that there will be boos.

On another note, the Toronto media is figuring out that Pogge is not the real deal. How long until the fans figure it out?

Alexander the Great

Ovechkin.

The name inspires defensemen to back off and give him room, and not get beat. It inspires defensemen to close on him fast so as to not get his laser beam shot off and onto the goalie. Basically, he causes so much confusion and frustration for opposing teams. All the while playing the game with a passion that never stops.

Having scored his 41st goal tonight in a hat-trick effort, Ovechkin is head and shoulders above any other scorer in the league. This is all after going scoreless in 10 of his first 11 games. Sure you can read all you want about Ovechkin anywhere else, but it's hard to actually understand how good he is. Realistically, this phenom has 41 goals in 45 games. Extrapolate that over 82 games and you have 74 goals (putting him just under Selanne at 76 and far off Lemieux's 85, Hull's 86 or Gretzky's average season). Also of note he takes about 150 shots more than anyone else each season, but let's not really care about that.

Claude Therrien: fired. Not surprising considering his Penguins sit in 10th in the East, 5 points out of the playoffs (look at it this way, they have just as many goals for as the Leafs). All this with having the league's leading scorer, a hart trophy winner and one of only three goaltenders chosen 1st overall, ever. Needless to say, Hossa and Malone weren't the only reasons this team went to the Finals last year. Therrien is responsible for 207 points over a two year span in Pittsburgh.

In AHL action, the Marlies continued their home ice dominance going 7-2 in their current home stand with weekend wins over Springfield and Grand Rapids. Tim Stapleton has definitely been the Marlies' best offensive player thus far with 50 points in 47 games. However, don't look for Stapleton to do any damage with the Leafs as the Oak Park, IL native is a diminutive 5'9''. Adam Munro played another excellent game for the Marlies, his .910 SVP is far greater than starter Justin Pogge's .894SVP.

Buyers and Sellers

With the March 3rd trade deadline approaching, my favorite time of the year is upon us!

Last year there was a flurry of trades with the biggest in my opinion being the Stars acquiring Brad Richards and Johan Holmqvist in exchange for Mike Smith, Jussi Jokinen, Jeff Halpern and a 4th round selection. A lot of people can contest that the Hossa trade to Pittsburgh, or the Campbell trade to San Jose were bigger, however, because those players aren't there anymore, I qualify the Richards trade as bigger.

This year there are a lot of fish in the sea, Jay Bouwmeester and Vincent Lecavalier seem to be the odds on favorites to move, however don't forget about the quiet Don Waddell who traded Hossa last year, he is still sitting on Ilya Kovalchuk. The first overall pick in 2001 has one more year left on his contract and some people are feeling that if Kovalchuk isn't extended this off season he will not return to Atlanta.

Staying with the Thrashers, Matthieu Schneider is a targeted rental player as his contract is up at the end of the year. Having just 41 points thus far this season, the Thrashers are in the thick of the Tavares lottery and might as well look for the "win".

Oh and don't forget anyone on the Islanders over the age of 30, ei: Doug Weight and captain Bill Guerin are both having decent seasons and would do well in any one's playoff run.

The Leafs have injured defenseman Thomas Kaberle as their highest ranked asset however his wrist/hand injury seems like it may hinder the chances of him moving out. Also, it seems that Brian Burke is actually pro-Kaberle, as opposed to any of the other players he has bashed publicly.

The Ottawa Senators are also sellers, Bryan Murray may have to look into trading one of their big guns in Spezza or Heatley even though Eugene Melnyk seems dead set against it. The most likely candidate to leave Ottawa has been one of their best defenseman this season: Filip Kuba is a UFA at the end of this season.

Enough about sellers, the buyers in this market seem to be two-fold; established contenders and bubble teams. The Sharks, Caps, Wings and Hawks are already tight against the cap so I wouldn't count on any major moves from them. Boston is a team that I can see making a move, with the amount of depth they have in the minors and the number of injured players rising they do have the type of cap room needed to add a key contributor down the stretch, look for them to add an experienced wing player.

The Stars might be a team that can add a key contributor, they have the room under the salary cap and their defense corps could need brush up with Zubov out for the season. The Stars could be in the market for Filip Kuba (at least I would like them to be).

The Habs. Well, it's hard to say what exactly is wrong with them right now but I can only hope that they learn to fix it quickly before falling out of the playoff picture (see: Pittsburgh Penguins). There are some incredibly hard decisions coming up in Montreal right now as the following players do not have a contract for next season:

1. Alex Tanguay
2. Saku Koivu
3. Alex Kovalev
4. Robert Lang
5. Chris Higgins
6. Tomas Plekanec
7. Steve Begin
8. Kyle Chipchura
9. Tom Kostopoulos
10. Guilliaume Latendresse
11. Francis Boullion
12. Mathieu Dandenault
13. Mike Komisarek
14. Patrice Brisebois