Clark will no doubt find work in the WHL again if he wants it, but the Blazers will still be paying him for the rest of this year and all of next season as well, so he has the luxury of waiting for the right opportunity while not having to worry about how to feed the family.
Still with the Blazers - as I was speculating yesterday, the Blazers have traded defenceman Keaton Ellerby for scoring help. Gregg Drinnan had it in his blog last night; the deal was officially announced today and sees Ellerby going to Moose Jaw for forward Brady Calla, in an exchange of 19 year olds. It's a swap of two guys whose production should oftentimes be more than what they have provided.
The second move, in light of the first one, begs the question: if the Blazers have no G.M. right now, who made the trade?
Something happened in the WHL last night that has not happened since 1995: the Prince Albert Raiders won a hockey game in Calgary. The Raiders topped the Hitmen 5-2 for their first regulation win in Calgary since November 22, 1995. They did win a shootout game 2-1 there on March 8, 2006, but shootouts are a skills competition.....the hockey game itself was a tie.
Since that November 1995 game (which was the Raiders' first-ever game at the Saddledome), they had gone 28 games without a regulation win.
For something slightly related to the Raiders, and something I overlooked last weekend: the Rebels have suspended 18 year old forward Luke Betts after he apparently refused a trade that would have seen him going to Prince Albert for a couple of midget prospects. I'm not sure why Betts would not want the fresh start....he seems to have been bypassed in Red Deer by the youth movement (funny, wasn't he PART of that youth movement just a year ago?) and perhaps he would have been able to play a bigger role in Prince Albert. I mean, if the Raiders were willing to give up TWO prospects for him, you'd think they might like Betts. As it is, he appears to be in limbo right now while (presumably) the Rebels try to work out something else. The Rebels are now down to just 12 forwards on their roster too.
Speaking of unhappy players; as per Kootenay's website, the Ice have traded malcontent defenceman Paul MacDonald - who had gone home earlier this week due to unhappiness about his ice time - to the Lethbridge Hurricanes for a 2009 7th round bantam pick. Uh, if that's the most that anyone would pay for him, then maybe his desire for more ice time wasn't well-founded.
The Ice also further reduced the need for their fans to buy programs by having the OTHER MacDonald on the team, forward Jason, leave the team and go home of his own accord. This MacDonald was only brought in a short while ago, after he had previously had stints in Regina and Kelowna. The Ice now have just 21 players on their roster. With three of those players being injured right now, they actually only have 18 players they can dress for upcoming games. Look for some callups or more trades here....
Still on the trade front, Everett overage goaltender David Reekie comes off the 60-day injured list tomorrow, which means (as I understand it anyway) that the Silvertips will now have one week to get down to three overagers again. So, sometime in the next seven days they will have to trade or release one of Reekie, Dane Crowley, Dan Gendur, or Brennan Sonne. Most likely it is going to be Reekie who gets moved since the Silvertips already have Leland Irving entrenched as the #1 goalie there. But on the other hand, maybe they want to cover their butts in the event Irving is gone for 5-6 weeks with the Canadian World Junior team....but that means moving one of the other overagers and would probably force a move of Reekie anyway at the trade deadline when Irving returned. So many options here.....we'll just have to see what happens.
Teams with open overage spots right now (who could take Reekie without needing to make another overager move to make room for him) are Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, and Vancouver, and none of those teams have glaring weaknesses in net. I actually can't see a team in the league right now that is probably unhappy enough with their goaltending that they would want to make a major move.....certainly some teams probably wish their goaltending was better or more consistent but unhappy enough to bring in a new overage? About the only team I think might be at that point is maybe Saskatoon but they don't have room for an overager either.
UPDATE: Everett has waived Reekie this morning, as per Nick Patterson's blog. So, I guess they didn't have a week to make a decision after all. Reekie can now be claimed by any team in the WHL for the next 24 hours; if more than one team claims him then the lower-ranked team in the standings gets him. If there are no claims in the 24 hours, he is free to go to any team he wishes in the CHL or Jr A.
Back to Lyon Messier and his famous dad for a minute.....found this article today on what Mark Messier is doing these days, in the lead-up to his Hall Of Fame induction. The reason I mention this is because in the article, Messier refers to his "two beautiful children". Which is nice, except.....he has three kids, not two. We can only presume he is referring to his two children with his current wife, and not Lyon, who is his son with a previous girlfriend. Poor Lyon.
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