Before Oilers fans start jumping off the High Level Bridge over Jay Bouwmeester's five-year, $33M deal with the Flames, I'd like to point out that they have less than $4.6M in cap space left, and are six players short of a 23-man roster. Mikael Backlund's cap hit alone is $1.3M. Unless Boyd and Pardy, the two easiest re-signings in terms of cap value, come in at around $600K apiece, the three remaining benchwarmers are all but guaranteed to put you over the line. Keep Backlund in the AHL and replace him with another benchwarmer, it might almost work, but after watching Backlund in the WHL final, that seems a bit like Anaheim keeping Bobby Ryan in the AHL an extra couple of months after "making" the team for cap reasons. Something's clearly got to give.

Update (20:20): Coach PB/Kurri17 points out, correctly, that they could also go with one benchwarmer instead of three and pray for good fortune until they're out of the financial woods. That doesn't strike me as much of a strategy, but I guess it is an alternative.

Speaking of giving, JW's been on top of the ongoing Heatley speculation, and offers up a package of Penner, Smid, Staios, and Eberle for Heatley and Gator. Bear in mind, Gator was a healthy scratch for a team worse than the Oilers last year. Maybe swap Eberle for a lesser prospect (or our old friend Rob Schremp) and I'd feel a little better about such a deal, but I'm not sure about it as it stands right now, especially given the likelihood of Heatley pussing out again in another three years when Mean Old Man Quinn benches him for lackadaisical backchecking one too many times. Still...hard to deny the allure of a repeat 50-goal man to replace our repeat 20-goal man at less than double the price.

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I'm the last person to really get too up about the draft one way or the other. Unless you're picking in the top three to five, the kid's not playing in the NHL this year, so the most I can do is note the name (Magnus Pääjärvi-Svenson -- say that three times fast), look at the blindingly optimistic projections, nod sagely, and get back to whatever it was I was doing before (as it turns out, playing Red Alert 3 until 3:30 AM). The more interesting thing at the draft, usually, is the pre-free agency maneuvering that many GMs do, as the roster freeze has lifted and everyone's got their spreadsheets out trying to figure out how they're going to sign themselves a Stanley Cup without skullfucking their cap until the end of the next decade.

It starts with Chris Pronger going to Philly for essentially the same package the Ducks sent out three years ago: Joffrey Lupul (still a twat), Luca Sbisa (superior to Ladislav Smid), and a bunch of picks. Oh, and some minor-league forward also went with Pronger, but he's probably not going to matter. I actually think the Ducks manage to win this coming and going. They get three years of affordable Pronger, get rid of Lupul for three years, upgrade their D prospect, and win a Stanley Cup. Solid moves all around. Philly...why the fuck do you give up one of your best defensive prospects for one year of an aging Chris Pronger? Unless you win the Cup this year, you've lost this trade, end of discussion.

Morning broke with news that Jay Bouwmeester's rights had been traded to Calgary for Jordan Leopold's and a third-rounder, a move followed up by the Flames reacquiring Brandon Prust from Phoenix for Jim Vandermeer, in an obvious cap-clearing. On the one hand, I really don't think the Oilers needed Calgary's D to get better, on the other hand, I really don't think the Flames needed their cap to get even more squeezed. Something's gotta give in this salary structure; if they're smart, they get rid of Kiprusoff while people still think he can rebound and bring in a couple of cheap but capable goalies who can play behind a defensive shell (Josh Harding is available). If they're not, they deal Phaneuf, who, for all I rag on him for being an expressionless prat and not even the best defender on his own team so why the fuck is he a Norris finalist, he's still got loads of upside that will continue to be realized over the next couple of years, and you don't want to miss out on that after paying the development costs.

Speaking of development costs, a confusing move by Steve Tambellini, as he gives up Kyle Brodziak for nothing. Okay, it's Brodziak and a sixth for the fourth and fifth, but I digress. Now, normally, one wouldn't be upset about losing someone whose upside is second- or third-line centre, depending on team quality, but given that the kids we'd like to be third-line centres have generally not worked out thus far, and since we haven't had a good veteran third-line centre in a while, either, you can see why this suddenly becomes worrisome. While making sure the kids in the top six perform to expectations/potential remains a key part of getting the team back to the playoffs, given the time invested, losing a key penalty-killer and the only guy not named Horcoff who can win a faceoff on the team doesn't help your cause when Job 1, I would argue, is reducing GA to a manageable level, especially when that guy was probably going to come at a reasonable rate for years to come. Maybe Tambellini has something else up his sleeve, but I can't understand how this trade helps the Oilers in the slightest.

Meanwhile, in Hitmen-related news, Kris Foucault goes to Minnesota at 103rd in the fourth round, and Brandon Kozun gets drafted by the Kings with Chicago's sixth rounder, 179th overall, while the Oilers drafted some fucking goon in the third for no adequate reason, not that I'm bitter. (Amusingly, the NHL has Kozun being from Los Angeles, when in fact, he's a Calgary product. Someone made the wrong copy-and-paste.)

Oh, and yes, the Habs were there, too, but I see nothing interesting to report, really. They please the crowd and take the local in the first round (Louis Leblanc), and a bunch of guys I've never heard of in later rounds. In case you were interested, their second went to Colorado by way of Calgary (the Alex Tanguay and Jordan Leopold trades), and they picked up Pittsburgh's seventh, the last of the draft, for next year's third-rounder (WTF?).

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...But really, does the fault not lie with the two who decided to gang up on my goaltender and repeatedly take him out to win games in NHL 3on3 Arcade?

Yeah, the comic may be up at some point this week, as Ender's been working on it, but me and Clegg showing up at his door may have thrown his schedule off a bit.

So yeah, there's no comic yet because of annoying guests, and not laziness on his part.

Well, I'm going to go now, Ender's almost out, and who knows what he'd do when he realizes what I did to his comic...

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So, this week's pages introduce what will be a recurring faction in the REEB saga: the Penguin Death Squad. I think they're pretty awesome. What about you?

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