The New Trade Deadline Strategy

from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail, The new hard currency at the deadline isn?t draft choices - unless they?re No. 1s, preferably in the top 15 - but prospects already in the pipeline, the Jake Gardiners of the world, the player who came to the Maple Leafs last year as a relative unknown semi-throw-in, in the Joffrey Lupul-for-Francois Beauchemin deal, but was closer to being NHL-ready than many casual observers imagined.

Nobody, among the Blue Jackets , Hurricanes, Ducks and their ilk has the patience any more to wait for that medium-to-long-term prospect who might spend three-to-five years in the pipeline before he?s NHL ready.

Drafting and developing is always the surest ticket to success - you need only examine the performance of teams as disparate as the New York Rangers or the Nashville Predators for proof of that - but it has finally sunk in for many GMs, picking through the ashes of previous deadline fiascos, that the returns they received for all their hot properties weren?t necessarily so hot after all.

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Source: http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/hockey/comments/the_new_trade_deadline_strategy/

Jorge Posada Lance Berkman Reegie Corona Juan Miranda Colin Curtis Kevin Russo