Dudley Googling "Goal Scorers"

Just to mess with Big Shooter's head, Rick Dudley has stated that he is interested in trading for a forward to help with the Thrashers dearth of scoring.

A watchful eye on the Twitter feeds this afternoon would have caught two interesting pieces of news. The first being that the Devils have placed Dainius Zubrus on waivers. The second being that the New York Rangers are looking to trade for a defenseman. (Both items come from this tweeter.)

The thought of feeble-minded Glenn Sather looking to acquire what we have to give makes me drool like Eric Perrin at a preschool field trip.

The Rangers are currently over the salary cap, but have made breathing room by putting Chris Drury's $7.050 million and Vinny Prospal's $2.1 million cap hits on the long term injured reserve list.

Knowing that those two will be back eventually and will bring their cap hits with them, the Rangers need to shed salary while bolstering their weak corps of defensemen. Glen Sather is gullible enough that he might think Boris Valabik is an upgrade over a dirty road cone.

Hopefully Rick Dudley isn't crazy enough to trade Bogosian, Enstrom, or Oduya. We know he's far too enamored with Big Buff to trade him. However, I could see Sopel, Hainsey, Valabik, Meyer, Postma, or even Kulda being offered up for a lamplighter.

In exchange for anyone but Valabik or Meyer, I would hope to see either Dubinski or Callahan changing shades of blue. I am also a big fan of Big Brian Boyle, but his league minimum salary would have to be packaged with something else to make the cap numbers work for New York.

Dudley has stated in the past that he doesn't want to take on bad contracts, so try as he might, Sather shouldn't be able to shovel Wade Redden (no need now that he's in the minors) off on us.

Zubrus would also be a good option. He has a lot of detractors, but he scored 23 and 24 goals in the two seasons before he started playing trap hockey in New Jersey. If nothing else he would be a big upgrade over Nigel Dawes or Anthony Stewart.