Saw this little tidbit courtesy of the Chicago Tribune via KK:
But still, (getting Chris Pronger) is a deal the Hawks have to press for. San Jose is looking at him, too, yet another reason the Hawks must make this happen.
Huh? Is that possible? Now I admit that I haven't followed the rumor mill as closely this year as previous years but I haven't heard anything about this. Of course, Doug Wilson tends to operate under the radar.
Could this actually be possible? Well, we'd have to take cap considerations into play here. Right now, the Sharks have about 500k in cap space, but any acquisition's cap hit is pro-rated. So in theory, Pronger's $6.25 million cap hit is about $1.3 million for the rest of the season. Obviously, some salary would have to go back the other way, and I'm not a cap-o-logist so I'm not sure what how much would actually have to go back the other way -- I think about $4 million, and obviously one of them would have to be a defenseman.
If a theoretical deal was made, the Sharks and Ducks could trade respective enemies by involving Jonathan Cheechoo in the deal. Then you'd have to have at least a high draft pick and a young defenseman. I'm guessing if this is being discussed, the Ducks would want Marc-Edouard Vlasic.
For next season, if you took on Pronger and eliminated Rob Blake plus change, that would essentially offset each other. Then the big issue becomes whether or not the cap goes down due to the crappy economy.
The bigger issue, though, is that if it did in fact eliminate someone like Vlasic from the roster, would it be worth it considering that the Sharks already have Dan Boyle and Rob Blake?
I'm sure there are plenty of combinations that would allow for cap hit offset. Feel free to speculate in the comments.
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