Deadline deals

First deal of the day is in: Calgary sends 19 year old defenceman Eric Frere to Kootenay for a 2008 5th round pick.

Not sure why the Hitmen would move out a good depth player, unless they are making room on the 25 man roster for some other acquisition today.

Second and third deals are in now.....both involving the Broncos. First, they send 17 year old goaltender Ian Curtis to Prince George, in return for 19 year old defenceman Jesse Dudas and 15 year old forward Catlin Foley. Foley was P.G.'s 6th round pick in 2007. Dudas is a quality pickup for the Broncos, if they can get him to stay healthy. The guy has played only 133 games over 3.5 years in the WHL due to injuries. In trading Curtis - who was the first goalie picked in the 2005 bantam draft - the Broncos give up on what was at one time their goalie of the future.

Acquiring Curtis also gives Prince George three goaltenders on their roster (overage Real Cyr and 19 year old Tommy Tartaglione are the others), so look for another deal there by the end of the day, I would think.

Anyway, to replace Curtis in their net, the Broncos have acquired 18 year old goalie Mark Guggenberger from Portland for a conditional 2009 draft pick. Guggenberger only played a few games for the Hawks this year before he was sent home for disciplinary reasons; is this really the guy the Broncos want to hang their playoff hopes on if starter Travis Yonkman goes down?

As a side note, Broncos p-b-p guy Jon Keen was hinting on his blog that there was interest in a "big name" from the Western conference. Maybe Guggenberger (12 letters) was that "big" name? :-)

Fourth deal now....Cougars send a 2008 7th round pick to Chilliwack for 18 year old defenceman Cody Hobbs.

Fifth deal.....Vancouver sends 17 year old forward Phil Gervais to Portland for a 2009 5th round pick. Gervais was acquired from Swift Current earlier this year but obviously hasn't worked out in Vancouver.

The Giants also reassigned 18 year old defenceman Justin Palazzo to Junior A.

Sixth deal....and holy crap. Medicine Hat sends 19 year old d-man Trevor Glass to Spokane for a 2008 3rd round pick and a 2010 2nd round pick. An average defenceman like Trevor Glass is worth TWO high picks like that? The world has gone mad!

I note Tiger G.M. Willie Desjardins says he has "mixed emotions" about trading Glass but feels a new organization is best for the player. I think that's code for "I didn't want to trade him but I soiled myself when they offered the 2nd rounder".

3:15pm Calgary time now, so the deadline passed about 15 minutes ago. We should be hearing shortly some of the last-minute moves...

Deal #7: Chilliwack trades 19 year old defenceman Matt McCue to Brandon for a 2009 4th round pick. That is two defencemen the Bruins have moved out today. Something tells me Nick Holden isn't going anywhere.

Deal #8: Red Deer trades overage forward Brennan Sonne up the highway to their rivals in Edmonton for a 2009 7th round pick. Neither of these teams is going to make the playoffs so I'm not sure why Edmonton is adding overagers instead of playing kids, but oh well.

5:30pm Calgary time now.....two and a half hours after deadline. If there were any more deals, we should probably have heard about them by now. So, it's starting to look like there might not be anymore....