A Bag of Pucks: The Trade Deadline (Goodbye, Matt Cooke!)

As I was driving home from school today, I turned on the TEAM 1040 and I listened to caller after caller berating Canucks GM Dave Nonis for not making any significant deals at the trade deadline.

I disagreed with each one of them because I believe that by abstaining from trading (and overpaying) for someone like Brad Richards, Nonis made the right decision. But more on that in a bit.

He did make a minor deal by swapping the under-acheiving Matt Cooke with the Washington Capitals for another under-acheiver in Matt Pettinger. I used to love Cooke. He played hard, he was chippy and he was good for at least five good hits per game. He even used to be a 15/20 player.

However, Cooke's play has become lazy and even dirtier than it was before. My biggest problem with Cooke is that he chirps away and hits hard (and low) but he doesn't back himself up when others challenge him to fight. Granted, Cooke isn't the greatest fighter in the first place. He lost a fight to Steve Moore right before Moore's neck got shattered by Todd Bertuzzi's fist and about 900lbs of hockey player. This prompted Nonis to later call Cooke "the worst fighter in the history of the National Hockey League." He currently has 7 goals and 9 assists, for which the Canucks were overpaying.

I suppose my breaking point with Cooke was when the 'Nucks played the Oilers a couple Saturdays ago. The game was full of bad blood, and at the end, it turned into 'ultimate fighting' on ice. As the brawl was taking place, the camera zoomed in on Cooke, who was sitting on the bench grinning wildly while the rest of his teammates were fighting. The Oilers' Sam Gagner, who hasn't even grown into his frame, was even among those who squared off. Coach Alain Vigneault reportedly has had a long-running problem with the way that Cooke comported himself on the ice and Cooke even went as far to say that there was a slight rift between them.

I'm glad to see him gone, and I would like to extend a warm welcome to Pettinger, who will most likely provide more bang and more boom than Cooke has done recently.

Now, onto the rest of the deadline: Karl did a great job reviewing the poor trade deadline trades that Nonis had previously made, so I won't repeat them. I am very glad that Nonis decided not to drop draft picks on mediocre players to 'augment' the Canucks, although I wish that the 'Nucks made more of an effort to go after Florida Panthers forward Olli Jokinen. Nonis did concede that he was looking for the big deal, but he was apparently rebuffed at every turn. From what I heard on TSN today, the Panthers were asking for the farm and the house for Jokinen, so good on Nonis for not biting like the Penguins did with Marian Hossa.

I am planning on posting again on Friday to get you all caught up on the rest of the local sports teams.

Photo courtesy of the Canucks Flickr group