Hilarity

Last week, Mike Gillis offered David Backes a 3 year offer sheet which the Blues matched within hours.

Today, JD and the Blues fought back and signed Steve Bernier to a 1-year, $2.5 m offer sheet... which the Canucks matched within the hour as well.

They must be LOLing down there.

MG: OH JD You got me good
JD: Hohoho, Merry Chrisstttmaaaaaaaaaas!!!

Anyway... and this makes me sound like a horrible fan, but does anybody else sort of cringe everytime you hear a player say that Vancouver is a team that will compete for the playoffs and the Stanley Cup nowadays? I mean, it's great to have all that confidence in the team, but realistically............... on paper, we look nowhere close to competing for the Cup. Competing for the playoffs, maybe (I mean... competing for the 8th spot is already competing for the playoffs)....

Yeah. Anyway.

About the Naslund fiasco.

I was in a state of shock since his signing last week. He is one of my all-time favorite Canucks, and it is just weird to not see him play all the time anymore. I don't even have NHL Center Ice to be able to regularly watch the New York Rangers, so it would be difficult to keep track of him.

As for my feelings wtih regards to this signing, oddly enough, I don't feel betrayed. I feel sad, and felt that Canucks could have made a similar offer as New York did and they would have been able to bring him back, but Gillis didn't even give him an offer. I felt happy that he is not part of this team, since the fans don't want him back, and the team definitely did not seem like they wanted him back.

I find it weird that a lot of notable Canucks players always left this team and city with some sort of bitter end.

Todd Bertuzzi got traded and he was presumably the "cancer" in the locker room, plus that Steve Moore incident.

Trevor Linden retired after playing a season which probably made him feel like he is not wanted by the coaching staff...

There's also Pavel Bure... now Markus Naslund.

This can't be good can it?

[add] In retrospect, playing for the New York Rangers really is a good thing for a family-man like Naslund. Road trips against division rivals like the Islanders and the Devils are really just a bus-ride away... he doesn't have to spend it in a hotel room somewhere, instead, he can go back to his own home and spend more time with his family.