Rich from LA Kings Insider got the ball rolling reporting from a source at TSN (The Sports Network, basically Canada's ESPN and pretty much ground zero for hockey info) that the Kings have acquired veteran forward Jeff Halpern from Tampa Bay. "I would assume that nothing more than a mid-round pick would be in play here, but I’ll find out ASAP..." He added:
The price for Jeff Halpern, to Tampa Bay, is Teddy Purcell and a third-round pick. Not sure if the pick is conditional or not, but it doesn’t appear so at the moment. Halpern turns 34 in May and will provide depth on the third or fourth line, as well as kill penalties. He has leadership ability as well, as he was the captain of the United States’ 2008 World Championships team.
...the Los Angeles Kings trading the forever-promising Teddy Purcell and a third-round pick that belongs to Florida to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Jeff Halpern. Nice grinder down the lineup for the Kings, with some leadership, and the Kings can clear his salary after this season.
As for Purcell, the majority opinion on Purcell is that he ran out of chances in LA and, in the opinion of one observer, is "soft as a pillow." Sounds like a 3 Milbury trade at the moment.
One Milbury: A fair trade that helps both teams, both in the short term and in the long run. No winner, no loser: Just a solid deal founded on smart financial and hockey needs. Think Brad Boyes for Dennis Wideman.
Two Milburys: A trade that could, down the road, burn one team in a big way. We're talking a trade of blue-chip prospects for a rental, if the team that's renting clearly isn't going to win it all this season.Three Milburys means a clear winner in a deal at the time of the trade. Someone got a little too desperate, or someone just got hosed.
Four Milburys! Bertuzzi, McCabe and eventually Jarkko Ruutu for Trevor Linden! Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha! YASHIN! DISASTER!
This is a typical Dean Lombardi pick-up at the deadline for a team that might potentially find itself playing postseason hockey for the first time in what seems like forever. Halpern will be looked to kill penalties, win faceoffs, anchor a third or fourth line and, above all else, bring that veteran experience and playoff savvy into a wide-eyed locker room. Halpern is set to be an unrestricted free agent in the offseason. Purcell, 24, averaged 11 minutes a night for the Kings and is set to be a restricted free agent in July.
Then, it was announced that Fredrik Modin was apparently been traded to the Kings for a conditional seventh-round pick...pretty much the same as giving up a bag of pucks. Modin is in the twilight of his career, but he's a big LW, and clearly the additions of he and Halpern was to beef up the team and add experienced, tough players for a post-season run. McKeon said, "Everyone knows Modin has one of the heaviest shots in the league, but he just can’t stay healthy." His guess was Kings’ GM Lombardi was probably talking to the Blue Jackets about Raffi Torres, but once he went to Buffalo he turned his attention to Modin. "The Kings had cap space and didn’t want to let it go to waste, especially when they know Modin comes off the books in the summer."
Surprising / not surprising was the non-movement of Alexander Frolov, who seems to play just well enough but has yet to breakout and be a top player. Any search with him and the word trade will pull up plenty of hits, and I'm guessing that the Kings plan is to try and resign him to a short term contract. By not dealing an upcoming free agent tells me they're not worried about losing him in the summer blitz for nothing in return, and are intent on keeping him...yet considering the annual tradebait chat, to give him a huge, multi-year deal would make him hard to unload.ESPN has a full trade tracker, if you care about any of those other teams (only to see if any are bigger challenges down the stretch). Welcome, new Kings!
UPDATE: First, Puck Daddy's grades for the whole group of trades. Also, Dean Lombardi spoke with Heidi Androl at LAKings.com to talk about this acquisition and his thoughts during the 2009-10 NHL trade deadline, with video both on Halpern and on Modin. Coach Murrary has audio on Halpern and Modin as well.
And I'm adding this piece from LA Kings Insider about the aforementioned constant Frolov trade rumors, which gives a little more understanding about the situation.
In three years of blogging, this might be my favorite post, and if you’ve been reading the blog(s) for a while, you probably know why. I asked Dean Lombardi about Alexander Frolov, and how close he had come, if at all, to pulling the trigger on a trade.
LOMBARDI: “Never an issue. We can put this thing to bed. I have never had a deal for Frolov, or even close to a deal for Frolov. You can put that in writing, finally, with the trade deadline done. I have never had anything close for trading Fro. I think those rumors about him started when, yeah, we gave him a little boot there when we called him out after the Columbus game (in October). It’s just amazing how stuff comes out, that it’s a fire sale on this guy and he’s going to be gone. For all the guys you talk about, leading up to the deadline, there was nothing even close for Fro. Not even close. It’s just ridiculous.
“We all know what the issues are with Fro, and (reporters) call and say, `Are you looking to get rid of this guy?’ No. But it’s no different than anybody. If Gretzky can be traded, anybody can be traded. But to think that I’m just trying to get rid of this guy, there’s no chance. This is still a good player. To think that we were out there trying to shop this guy, it’s ridiculous. That’s a classic example to me. Not one of those rumors was even close. Sometimes rumors out there at least make sense, or there was at least talk about it. This was all ridiculous.
“The worst thing was, I felt terrible. I called him up to the office to bust him a little bit about the Russian Olympic team, in a good-natured way. The poor kid thought he was getting traded. I completely forgot about it. Before the trade deadline, the last thing a player wants to hear is, `The GM wants to see you.’ I forgot about that part. I’m looking at him, thinking, `Why is he so sheepish?’ Then I started (teasing him) and he didn’t know what to make of it. He’s thinking he’s being traded, and I just called him up to give him crap about the Russians.”
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