NHL’s wild West signing top talent
St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong targeted Paul Stastny in free agency. But before he even had the chance to sign him, the Dallas Stars traded for Jason Spezza.
“I was a little bit nervous this morning when Dallas made their acquisition what our Plan B would be,” Armstrong said.
Such is life in the Western Conference, where contending teams are playing an escalating game of “Can you top this?” specifically down the middle of the ice. Having a strong one-two punch of centres is necessary given the Los Angeles Kings’ duo of Anze Kopitar and Jeff Carter and now the Anaheim Ducks’ combination of Ryan Getzlaf and Ryan Kesler.
“If you want to be one of the elite teams, you have to have it,” Stars GM Jim Nill said. “You look at the other teams that are winning on our side now, you need to have two elite centremen.”
Nill came from the Detroit Red Wings, who won Stanley Cups thanks in part to having Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov and later Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. In Dallas now, he has Tyler Seguin and Spezza.
The Stars need them to compete in the Central Division, let alone the Western Conference. The NHL’s new divisional playoff format makes that a necessity.
While Anaheim has to worry about getting through Cup-champion Los Angeles, Dallas has to contend with Jonathan Toews and now Brad Richards with Chicago, Alex Steen and Stastny with St. Louis and Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon with the Colorado Avalanche.
Armstrong said Tuesday that the Blues’ first goal had to be dethroning the Avalanche, who finished first when St. Louis scuffled at the end of the season. Enter Stastny, signed to a US$28-million, four-year deal not long into free agency.
“They’re the champs and they’re the first team we have to take a look at catching,” Armstrong said. “If we’re fortunate enough to do that and get into the playoffs, we want to have the guys that can compete at that time of year.”
Signing Stastny away from Colorado was a good place to start. Of course part of the rationale the 28-year-old had in leaving was a compliment to the Avalanche’s superb centre depth.
“You look at Colorado and you had these dynamic players in MacKinnon and Duchene and they’re young and they’re still developing,” Stastny said. “You never know what’s going to happen down the road when MacKinnon kind of becomes a centre and (maybe) he pushes me out of the way, you never know.
“I look at St. Louis, their window to win the Cup is now and for the next seven or eight years.”
Even with the San Jose Sharks in a rebuilding stage, the window is cracked wide open for the Blues, Avalanche, Blackhawks, Kings, Ducks and Minnesota Wild.
The Wild signed Thomas Vanek to mix in with Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.
And only now, after signing Richards to a $2-million, one-year deal, are the Blackhawks able to matchup down the middle with the best in the West.
In Dallas, Spezza said he always considered the Stars a good fit as he was on the verge of being traded by the Ottawa Senators. In the process, he rejected a deal that would’ve sent him to the Nashville Predators and made them playoff contenders.