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Bruins and Blues Swap Prospects

The Boston Bruins traded young goaltending prospect Hannu Toivonen to the Blues in exchange for Carl Soderberg. Toivonen was a first round draft pick, 29th overall, in 2002 but has yet to live up to his expectations and has split time between the NHL and the AHL. He's projected to eventually be a number one goaltender, but the acquisition of Manny Fernandez made him expendable. He still has a tremendous upside so this trade could, eventually, come back to haunt the Bruins. Soderberg, on the other hand, is more of a wild card. He has great size at 6-3 198 lbs and it very developed for a 21 year old. He as yet, however, to play a single game in the NHL but has averaged roughly a point-per-game in the Swedish Elite Leagues and showed tremendous potential in the Under-18 division.

Senators Keep Their Man

Ray Emery, who led the Senators to the Stanley Cup finals, was the biggest name in arbitration. It was rumored that he wanted somewhere around $4 million per year while the club wanted to sign him to a deal similar to that of Ryan Miller in Buffalo or Cam Ward in Carolina, which would put him at around $2-2.5 million. It looked like the 24-year-old was going to head into arbitration and most likely receive a substantial raise but at the last minute, the two sides found some middle ground. He signed a three-year deal worth $9.5 million. This is a substantial raise over the $925,000 he made last season but I'm guessing that the arbitrator would have awarded him an even larger payday simply for making the finals.

I was a doubter of Ray Emery early on but he showed some poise in the playoffs. He's still very young and has a lot of developing to do, but I think this is a great sign by the Senators who have always struggled at the goaltending position. Now if they could just unload Martin Gerber's salary.....