Radim Vrbata Headed Back to the Coyotes
by Travis Hair on Jul 21, 2009 2:39 PM MST
3 comments
This afternoon, the Coyotes traded defenseman David Hale and left wing Todd Fedoruk to the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for right wing Radim Vrbata.
Vrbata had issues last year after signing a big 3 year 9 million dollar deal with Tampa Bay. In 18 NHL games he scored 3 goals and had 3 assists. He asked the team for leave to go back and play in the Czech Republic and they allowed him to leave since he wasn't producing and it meant they didn't have to pay him. While in the Czech Republic he split time between HC Bílí Tygři Liberec and Mlada Boleslav BK. In 21 combined games he went 10-8-18. Earlier in the summer he said that he was looking to return to the NHL, but the Lightning pretty much said he wouldn't be playing for them unless it was in the minors. In his season with the Coyotes he did very well, especially with Martin Hanzal, with 27-29-56 to show for it. If he can even approach that form again it would be a nice gain for the Coyotes. He may be somewhat over priced, but we've got plenty of cap space and could use some goal production.
As for Hale and Fedoruk I don't think anyone will be broken up over their departure. Fedoruk was a solid checking line player who could pitch in a goal or two here or there, but Hale on the blueline was never something that turned out well. Though he did finally score his first NHL goal with us last season, he just always seemed to simply take up space on the ice and not in a good way. He was a constant healthy scratch, playing 48 games last season, mostly when Derek Morris went down with an injury or when Ken Klee needed a game off.
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Yay!!!
Welcome back Vrby! I love this move…have to imagine that GMDM has some embarassing photos of Len Barrie, or that Bettman wants to really screw with the Tampa ownership after the money issues that have been in the headlines.
No more needless Fridge shifts! No more David Hale Experiment! I don’t even care if Vrby doesn’t play as well as he did a few years back, this is a great move. Not that I want to play with the top line that was clicking so well last year, but we could have an interesting all-Czech unit in Prucha-Hanzal-Vrbata…but I think I’d rather get two more solid shutdown guys to play with Marty and shut down the other teams’ top line.
But Vrbata with Turris and Boedker may be a fun combo since Vrby has a knack for finding space and firing the puck to the net if he gets decent feeds.
World Ph*cking Champs! That was fun - let's do it again...
If he can score goals
Then I’m glad for this move. Scoring was one of our big problems last year. Even though we have a lot of talented forwards and centers, none of them is really a great scorer and there were games where we would really struggle to score. Not to mention that I was NEVER impressed by Fedoruk and Hale…
My body might be in Greece, but my mind and my heart is in Arizona. When the heck will I visit the Desert?
Now if you secured Tanguay, you’d have a decent core up front!
by Cruisin4aBruisin on Jul 24, 2009 10:51 AM MST reply actions
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