Half(that) price sale

“Just when I thought you couldn’t possibly get any dumber, you go do something like this…and totally redeem yourself!” – Wild fans, addressing Chuck Fletcher, 7/3/11

I’ve been slacking lately, my apologies, but there was a holiday and these are lean times to begin with.

The Twins are lousy, but not lousy enough to offer the great comedy of April and May. Not to mention that Scott Baker, the one player I truly enjoy ripping, is having a good run of things lately.

The summer drafts have passed, eliminating another talker.

Technically, there's no NFL, which means no NFL free agency or training camp battles to speculate on.

Too early to talk college football, and frankly there's not much to talk about there to begin with, at least not as far as the local university is concerned.

It's the doldrums of the sports calendar and I'm running on fumes. I know that this time of year is when a person should be out playing golf, mowing the lawn, but until recently, the Phantom Summer of 2011 hasn't offered much opportunity there either. Sure there have been a few good days, and things are starting to turn a bit, but I still crave sports entertainment and banter.

Besides, it's usually dark out during my free time, what am I supposed to do with that? The only options are watching whatever Yankees or Red Sox game ESPN is currently airing, checking out the Women's World Cup, or (gulp) network TV. Let's see, "Undercover Boss", "So You Think You Can Dance" or "Letting The Car Idle In The Garage Until Overcome By Carbon Monoxide"? Sounds like I'm going to need a towel and garden hose, would hate to do a half-assed job and only end up a vegetable, I drool enough as it is.

Enter an unlikely savior in the form of the Minnesota Wild, who’ve topped a mild shakeup on draft day with a true blockbuster, dealing Marty "Halfthat" Havlat to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for Dany Heatley. My feelings can be summed up pretty succinctly in a text message to a friend of mine upon hearing the news Sunday night: “Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome.” Here I thought the team was stuck with another 2-3 years of Havlat and Mikko Koivu as our best scoring options, playing everything cose to the vest and trying to win every game 2-1. Now with Heatley in the fold, the team finally has the marquee scorer it’s been missing, and added some true excitement going into the season.

Havlat has probably taken too much heat over the last few years, after all, it’s not his fault he got offered big money by a team that didn’t fit his skills. There’s more to the game than goals of course, but there’s also a lot more players who can provide that other stuff, putting the puck in the net will always be a premium skill. Last I checked, that’s still how they decide who won the game. Paying $30 million to a pass-first player like Havlat, who can be phenomenal when paired with great finishers, but fairly average otherwise, never made sense in the first place. At first I was shocked that the Wild didn’t have to include more, at least sending a draft pick to the Sharks, but when reflecting further, it starts to make a bit more sense.

The Sharks have no lack of high-end offensive players, and with a couple young regulars set to earn raises in the next couple of years, saving $2.5 million against the cap also makes sense. The list of names currently on the roster who seem to fit Havlat’s game is long, and it’s easy to imagine him setting up Thornton, Marleau, Pavelski, et al. for a lot of goals before things are said and done. Meanwhile the Wild gets the sniper it’s been lacking, and moves the needle on the offseason from ‘solid’ to ‘spectacular’.

Sure there are risks involved in making this move. Ottawa fans are still bitter about the way Heatley forced his way out of town. But when you consider what’s being given up, the similarity in salaries and the fact the Wild move one season closer to gaining a ton of cap room, this feels like a steal of a deal. Even if he never approaches the 50-goal mark of several years ago, Dany Heatley is the most exciting player the team has seen since Mary-Ann Groinorik left town, score 35-40 and Wild fans will be ecstatic.

Plus, on a personal level, I like how this move impacts the character of the team. For a long time I’ve been clamoring for more North Americans, more college hockey players, and now one of the best of both plays for our team. I’ve loved Heatley’s game since he took the WCHA by storm at the beginning of the last decade; his two seasons at Wisconsin are still among the best I’ve seen. Baggage aside, if given my choice of attainable players to add to this club (meaning no Crosby, Toews, Parise, etc), he would’ve been near the top of the list.

There are holes to fill and improvements to be made, but for the first time in a long time as a Wild fan, it feels like there’s momentum. Hope can be a dangerous thing, especially where trades are involved, but we are long overdue for a fresh bit of it around these parts, welcome to town Mr. Heatley.