Brow down to this Man

After clinching a playoff spot, the New York Islanders made a move Saturday that will pay dividends in the post season. The club acquired forward Bobby Holik and a 3^rd round draft pick, sending Brian Smolinski and a 2^nd round pick to the St. Louis Blues.

GM Ryan Long was very happy with the trade. “Holik was someone we targeted a couple months ago and were aggressively pursuing him on the trade market. A number of our offers were rebuffed, so we decided to be patient and make some other deals and adopt a wait and see position. Luckily for us, the Blues have been on a bit of a slide, and made them more agreeable to trading the UFA. Smolinski had been a healthy scratch for us, as we were struggling to try and find a defensive player to fill Mike York’s place on the penalty kill unit (York was traded a couple weeks ago with Teppo Numminen in the deal for Matthieu Schneider). We acquired Scott Parker and Dan Hinote to audtion in the role, however were always hopeful we’d get another crack at Holik.

Isles coach Lorne Henning is very excited about the addition of Holik. “Let’s see, we added a 6’4” 230lb forward, who has a history of performing in the playoffs, and brings a wealth of leadership to the locker-room. He’s like sandpaper, constantly getting under the skin of other team’s best players. Yeah, I’m pretty happy with the deal. Holik is the whole package; defensively he is almost perfect, and he is a hitting machine. He is also no slouch offensively, and brings some secondary scoring to our bottom lines.”

Holik, 35, is playing through the final year of his contract, and knows this could be his last chance at a Stanley Cup. “Look at Mike Richter last year. He got traded to the Isles, and ended up retiring a champion. I can think of no better way to end my career then a championship parade through Long Island.”