Hey, quick show of hands: who wants to not pay $1.3 million against the cap for Donald Brashear to play in Hartford? OK, OK, quite a few of you, huh? Yeah, that's reasonable. OK, let's make that happen, then.
In a move that seems to reaffirm that if all our good unwanted players go to Phoenix, all our bad unwanted players go to Atlanta, we've managed to trade Brashear along with rarely-heard-from prospect Patrick Rissmiller (remember him? a little?) to the Thrashers, in exchange for center Todd White. White is 5'10", 195 lbs, and 35 years old (but don't worry, he's on the last year of a contract that was signed well before he turned 35). He had a hallmark season in 2008-'09, scoring 73 points (22-51) - outside of that, he's good for what looks like 40 or so points a year. Another candidate for our center rotation, basically: if he happens to work well with Gaborik, he'll end up there; otherwise, he'll end up somewhere else.
He's costing us $2.375 million against the cap this season, which is only about a million more than Brashear was costing us to not play for us, and it expires at the end of the year in case it doesn't work out. It should still leave us room to sign Staal and it should still not leave us room to bring back Redden. What it actually does is likely close out another spot for a kid, leaving us less room to bring up Mats Zuccarello-Aasen, for example. I don't think that's the worst thing: it offloads the dead contract and gives this White guy a chance to be a really useful center for us, and if it doesn't work out, we can always send him to Hartford at any time this season and replace him with a kid.
In conclusion, who gives a shit about Todd White right now? Donald Brashear is no longer affiliated with our organization! It's fucking party o'clock!
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