Couple notes

Just a couple things this morning....

First, defenceman Alex Plante was reassigned by the Edmonton Oilers back to the Calgary Hitmen on Saturday, and to almost everyone's surprise, he played that night for the Hitmen. This despite his rather public request for a trade. So now the question is whether this is a permanent situation (ie, the team & Plante have worked out their differences) or whether he is just playing for the Hitmen in order to allow the team to showcase him for an eventual trade. We'll see.

Personally, I'd like to think Plante had a change of heart (and perhaps the Oilers had a hand in it too!), because it is hard to imagine a better situation for Plante this year than being with the Hitmen. He is easily the #1 defenceman on that team and will play 30 minutes a night in every possible situation - even strength, shorthanded, powerplay, everything. Plus, probably the only place in the league where he would get more attention from the Oilers would be to play in Edmonton itself for the Oil Kings. All things considered, Calgary is about as good as it gets for him as he tries to showcase himself to the Oilers this season and earn a contract befitting a 15th overall pick. A trade to a contender (or at least to a team with a deeper defence) might see him used in a smaller role, and a trade to a smaller or more out-of-the-way city might not put him in front of Oilers scouts and management as much as playing in an NHL rink and for a team that makes several appearances in Edmonton this year might.

But, we'll see if he stays a Hitman the whole year or not.

In other news, it's starting to sound like the Chiefs might have lost import forward Ondrej Roman to a Czech team....read this post from Gregg Drinnan's blog for the details. Makes me think either Roman has given up on getting a release to come back here to North America, or he never planned to come back here in the first place and the release story was just an excuse. I mean, if you really want your club team to release you to cross the pond, why on Earth would you start playing some games for them? That's counterproductive.

And a minor trade on Saturday too, Edmonton sending 18 year old forward Brett Henke to Lethbridge for a 7th round pick in next spring's draft.