Gainey's re-tooling
After a succesfull training camp, in which many Canadiens prospects showed management signs of wanting to stick around the NHL, general manager Bob Gainey decided to re-tool his squad a little bit.
In a shocking turn of event, last year's leading goal scorer Michael Ryder packed his stuff en route to Chicago, where he will continue his career. The Habs get promising defenceman Brent Seabrook in return, which might surprise quite a lot of people who were high on him. The Hawks desperately needed a sniper of Ryder's caliber, and Gainey was willing to ship him off to Wind City only in exchange of a young dman like Seabrook.
Mathieu Dandenault is going back to Detroit, where he played so many seasons and won multiple cups, in return the Habs get promising center Tomas Kopecky. Bob Gainey had this to say in his press conference this morning:
''We evaluated the players in place during training camp, and we came to the conclusion that Michael and Mathieu didn't fit into our plans. We knew these players could be very valuable to other teams, that's why we played hardball after placing them on the trade block. I believe that we've gotten an excellent return for both of these guys, and we are excited to see what Brent and Tomas can bring to our hockey club.''
