So how's everybody holding up?
After all that buildup, the only player movement from the Vancouver Canucks here on deadline day was the loss of Adam Cracknell to Edmonton on waivers.
Dan Hamhuis remains a Canuck and has already spoken to the media at Rogers Arena, as has Jim Benning.
I spent six hours liveblogging for Bleacher Report this morning and the most exciting transaction I got to report was Mikkel Boedker's trade to Colorado. Plenty of sellers were left with their rental players on their hands at the end of the day, including Toronto with P.A. Parenteau, Michael Grabner and Brad Boyes, Boston with Loui Eriksson, and everybody on the Edmonton Oilers—leaving poor James Duthie and the rest of his huge TSN TradeCentre crew desperately digging for ways to kill time during their seven-plus hour broadcast.
In the end, the most important moment for Canucks fans came when the Dallas Stars announced that they had traded for defenceman Kris Russell from the Calgary Flames.
Benning said in his press conference that, when talking to the Stars, the framework of the deal they discussed was similar to the haul that Calgary received—and which is widely considered to have been one of the better sell jobs of the day.
Calgary gets a younger defensemen that can play right away in Jyrki Jokipakka, a prospect winger in Brett Pollock, who was taken in the second round in 2014, and a second-round draft pick that will turn into a first-rounder if the Stars make the Western Conference Final.
Benning admitted that, in the end, the Stars made the decision to choose Russell over Hamhuis. They did come back around at the end of the day to see if they could pick up Hamhuis as well—and so did Chicago—but my guess is that those were both lowball offers designed to test whether Benning would be willing to take anything he was offered rather than standing pat.
Here's how Stars GM Jim Nill describes Russell to
Mike Heika of Dallas News SportsDay:
He's a little bit of a pit bull. He's from Western Canada, so he's got a little Texas and he's got that farmboy mentality and he's in guys' faces. He is one of the premiere shot blockers in the game and he's going to help our penalty killing that way, so he brings a lot of different intangibles and I believe he was assistant captain on the team in Calgary, so it's all positive for us moving forward.
Nill also mentions Russell's ability to play on both sides and says he hopes the move will give Lindy Ruff some flexibility in how he uses his blueliners.
I can't help wondering, too, if Dallas owner Tom Gaglardi took a gamble that he'd be able to lowball the Canucks. Here's more from Nill, talking about his owner.
Yeah, Tom's here. Tom came in, came in three days ago, been out to a couple of our games and he's very involved. It's his team. Not only when you start to trade draft picks, there's financial implications in all these things too and he wants to know where this all fits in, but he's got a hockey mind. He loves this time of the year and he watches players and watches teams. We have great dialogue and we kind of work through it all.
Not only does Gaglardi have an acrimonious relationship with the Canucks ownership group, don't forget that Benning was also part of the management team in Boston that dealt Tyler Seguin to the Stars—a deal now widely considered among the worst in NHL history.
And just to clarify—yes, Dallas and Chicago were the only two teams that Hamhuis said he'd be willing to waive for. There was chatter in the late going on Monday that Boston, Pittsburgh and Washington also made inquiries, but apparently Hamhuis had no interest in going to the Eastern Conference and being so far away from his family.
Boston and Pittsburgh I can understand—their playoff prospects are mid-level at best. But I'm a little surprised that he didn't entertain the possibility of rejoining his old coach Barry Trotz in Washington—a team with a real shot this year.
It sounds like what we'd heard about the Blackhawks several days ago was also accurate. Chicago was interested in Hamhuis around the middle of last week, but decided to acquire Andrew Ladd instead.
As for Radim Vrbata, Benning asserted that he provide a "good list," but that there wasn't anything the Canucks could do.
So here we are. Right where we were yesterday except without Adam Cracknell, who's happy to be staying in the NHL.
Iain MacIntyre called it early this morning.
This year's deadline ran counter to a lot of conventional wisdom—especially, that it's when selling prices are the highest. The tight salary cap and low Canadian dollar are the biggest factors that kept the top teams from making more deals or bigger deals—and I wonder if it's a sign that teams will continue to struggle with the long-term implications of short-term salary-cap decisions throughout the entire duration of this collective bargaining agreement, even if the cap starts going up again?
A couple of months ago, I worried that the issue would be a blurry line between the buyers and sellers with so many teams caught in the middle, but that didn't seem to be as much of an issue as the basic league economics of the moment.
Better luck at the draft, Mr. Benning...
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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