The Olympic break is here, and not a moment too soon, both for busted up hockey players and myself, a busted up hockey fan. There are 1230 hockey games a year, NOT including playoffs. That’s a lot of hockey.

Here are some things you might have missed if you were buried under 4 feet of snow without a computer, television, or cellphone:

February 4, 2010: Ilya Kovalchuk traded to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for sending Johnny Oduya, Niclas Bergfors, prospect Patrice Cormier and a first-round pick to the Atlanta Thrashers. Interesting note: Kovalchuk becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. He turned down a $101 million, 12-year contract from the Trashers so it will be fun to see what Jersey will need to do in order to sign him. Atlanta currently has significantly more cap space than New Jersey.

February 8, 2010: Niclas Wallin acquired by San Jose in exchange for the Carolina Hurricanes’ second round 2010 draft pick. Also headed to San Jose was the ‘Canes 2010 fifth round pick. Jumping from the 28th place team to the 2nd place team? Who cares about what San Jose or Carolina gets out of it: Wallin is the big winner.

February 8, 2010: Tomas Vokoun will be staying in Florida for now. He’s no Jonathan Quick but the Panthers need him desperately. Backup keeper Scott Clemmensen is nothing special and has won only 5 of the 12 games he’s played this season. Jacob Markstrom, one of Florida’s goalie prospects is currently playing quite well in the Swedish Elite League, but it may be premature to trade away Vokoun right now, especially since the Panthers will be relying on him to keep them in line for the playoffs.

Aside from that, the Bruins, Blackhawks, Flyers and Hurricanes all enter the break on a strong note–each riding a 4-game winning streak. The New York Islanders have dropped 8 of their last 10 games but the Edmonton Oilers have lost 7 of 10, and the New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Florida Panthers who have all lost 6 of 10, are not faring much better.

But let’s forget about all that for now and have fun watching the Olympics…as playoff season approaches, there will be plenty of NHL drama to recap 🙂

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Wrap-up & Preview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.