Deadline dealings

In what has to be considered a very odd moves considering the current league standings, the Rangers have dealt away center Sergei Fedorov and top LW David Booth during Tuesday's Trade Deadline. Here's what the moves looked like and the GM's reasoning for making the moves:

The first trade was Sergei Fedorov to the Florida Panthers for Wayne Primeau and cash.

"We were less than 500K from the Salary Cap and if we wanted to make any significant transactions we needed to free up cap space to do that. With Filppula playing so well for us, we felt moving him to the 3rd line center position for the remainder of the season and in the PO's would be in our best interests. The Cash always helps during the summer."

The 2nd and more interesting of the two trades was David Booth and Eric Goddard St. Louis for Eric Fehr and Steve Downie.

"This was a difficult deal for us to make. We had been speaking to a couple of teams regarding Booth and when we settled on Goddard going back the other way we made the deal. Booth was a very fine player for this team, but one that we felt we could replace with Laich for the rest of the Season and PO's. Ruutu will remain on the 3rd line as he, Filppula and Clowe are creating some solid chemitry. We expect Fehr to play consistently LW on our 2nd line with either Prospal or Kopitar centering and either Perry or Gaborik on RW. Fehr is a big bodied player that while not overly physical, can take a hit to make a play. He's also a kid that is starting to come into his own and we are looking forward to seeing what he can do for this team. Steve Downie is a kid that we like alot. A hard nosed aggressive winger that likes to drive, both, to the net and opposing teams batty. We expect that he will be playing a huge role for this team next year and beyond."

The third deal was minor in nature, but odd never the less. Chad Wiseman and 1 million to the Blues for a 2010 4th round pick.

"We had hopped to flip that pick out for an impending UFA winger that could have provided us both depth and additional scoring. We weren't able to get that done so we keep the pick and will make the best possible selection we can come the 2010 MRFHL Entry Draft."

Overall we seel that we had a solid day in that for the most part we got done what we had hoped to get done. We shed some salary and acquired some assets that are going to help this team remain competitive beyond this season.