For all of us who were hoping we would limp into the Olympic break and force Sather's hand into selling that is obviously out the window winning 2 straight and 3 of 4 to get within 1 point of 8th, so we all know that Sather is going to make a buyer move between the 28th and March 3 when the deadline actually comes.  This is the point where having Sather as the GM makes me nervous cause of his propensity to throw away draft picks in trades and though to this point he hasnt done it with prospects that is always a possibility.  The question now is what "buy" moves should he make and what are the ones to avoid.

Let me start with guys i would avoid making a move for

Souray 5.4 mil for 2 more years and is constantly hurt, and awful defensively when on the ice

Horcoff 5.5 mil for 5 years...one of the worst contracts in the league that Edmonton is going to try to get someone to swallow.

Vinny Lecavalier 7.727 mil for the next 10 years

David Booth 4.2 mil until 2015 and had the serious concussion this year

Cogliano dont know what the obsession w this kid really is as he has 13 pts in 60 games and would get destroyed in the east

Ray Whitney not a question of ability or contract (though he does want a 2 or 3 year extension at 37) but not giving up a 1st for him.

Ponikarovsky not worth a 2nd rounder to repeat what we did with Antropov last year.

So few teams have been declared "sellers" at this point to guess on all the bad contracts we could go after

Moves if we do Buy

Florida:  Horton and to less of an extent Weiss...IF they can make a move that sends Dubi, Girardi and even Gilroy to Fla for Horton and Leopold or Seidenberg would make us better without really jeopardizing the future...Potter has shown he is solid enough to play 15 min or so a game the rest of the year.

Columbus:  They have played well since the firing of Hitch so maybe they have been freed up and it makes it tough to project what if anything they would sell.  They have been said to be looking for a d-man so if they could send Rozi there for Huselius that would help the offense and basically is a wash contract wise.  This would be more difficult for us if we did deal both Girardi and Gilroy in a florida deal as we would be changing 3 d-men and only getting 1 back.

Dallas:  Another team on the bubble of buy/sell who has been said to look for a d-man and i am high on niskanen as a good young d-man.

The only Edmonton guys i would want to go after are Gagner, Penner and maybe Lubo if they took one of the R sisters.

Reality is for me if we are taking on salary it cant be longer than what we are giving up and i dont want to sacrifice the future (picks, prospects) to squeak in this year, but Sather is going to buy so let us hope he buys smart.  It really is a shame they got hot right before the break and won those 3 games because as hot as Prospal is right now with the market netting a 2nd for Moore and 2nd and a young player for Cullen, vinny could have definitely netted us a 2nd+ or even a 1st to help us keep adding talent to the pipeline.