Up first is the Minnesota Wild who traded for Jason Pominville from the Buffalo Sabres.  A big hearty congratulations goes out to Sabres’ GM Darcy Regeir for pulling off what could be one of the most lopsided trade in recent memory.  Regeir was able to part ways with Pominville and in return received goaltender Matt Hackett, prospect Johan Larsson along with a first round pick in 2013 and a second round pick in 2014.  Are you kidding me?  The Wild actually agreed to send all that to Buffalo for Pominville and a fourth rounder in 2014?  Yes, it actually happened.

Pominville, 30 comes with a cap hit of $5.3 million this season and next.  Reasonable money for a player that has 10 goals and 15 assists in 37 games for the Sabres this year.  His career year came in 2007-08 when he registered 80 points in 82 games, 27 of which were goals.  Last year with Buffalo he broke the 30-goal plateau for the first time in his career and finished with the second highest point total of his career with 73.

So the Wild are getting a goal scorer and a valuable right winger to play on the second line.  But why did Chuck Fletcher mortgage the future for it?  The biggest head scratcher I have with the deal is not Larsson but the first round pick and Hackett.

The Wild are full of up and coming prospects so to part ways with Larsson is not a big loss.  But netminder Niklas Backstrom is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer and will surely seek a healthy raise.  With the health of Josh Harding questionable long term and Backstrom already 35, Hackett was pegged as the goalie of the future.  Not anymore and as a result I put the Wild in the loser category.  You have to wonder if Fletcher felt the pressure from Vancouver making a trade to get Derek Roy from the Stars and after losing out on Ryane Clowe, he panicked to trade for Pominville.  That and it sounds like there was a pile of interest in the Sabres forward so it may have become a bidding war.  Whatever the case, he overpaid in my opinion.

Speaking of the Vancouver Canucks, I have them in the loser category for the sheer fact that they failed to get a deal done that involved sending Roberto Luongo out of town.  Earlier today we looked at the reasons why Luongo wasn’t moved and when it came down to Mike Gillis refusing to eat some of his ridiculous salary, the deal fell apart. For that reason alone the Canucks are losers at the deadline.  Gillis had the opportunity to make his club instantly better by acquiring some assets in the deal but also ridding his players of the hassle that will be the circus around Luongo and Corey Schneider.

It’s not often you could classify the Detroit Red Wings as losers, but in my mind they fall into this category at the trade deadline.  Ever since the start of the season when the Wings blue line was decimated with injuries we heard that GM Ken Holland would like to add a top-four, puck moving defenseman.  The opportunities were there to trade for Jay Bouwmeester and to a lesser extent Jordan Leopold or Robyn Regehr.  Holland decided the price was too high and balked at making a deal.  Some might argue and say this was wise for the Wings to sit tight and not deal assets for any of those players, but with the playoff race tightening in the west, the Wings did nothing to make their club better.  Is this the year that all that experience fails to come through in the clutch?

Finally, we have the Nashville Predators who, despite being in the playoff mix shipped out more talent then they received at the deadline.  Perhaps none bigger than sniper Martin Erat who apparently requested a trade and David Poile obliged.  As Jason Kirk, our editor at Predlines pointed out on Facebook, Erat is the leader in almost every offensive category in Predators history and will no doubt leave a huge hole in their lineup.

Along with trading away Erat the Preds dealt veteran defenseman Scott Hannan to the San Jose Sharks for a conditional seventh round pick in this year’s draft. There is some hype around Filip Forsberg who the Predators received for Erat, but whether or not he’ll leave Sweden to play in the NHL is a question mark.

Agree or disagree with these?  Leave your comments below.

The dismantling did start with the trading of Jarome Iginla, followed by Jay Bouwmeester but that’s where it stopped.  No Miikka Kiprusoff trade, no Michael Cammalleri trade and no Curtis Glencross trade.  Why not?  Let’s dig a little deeper.

We already know about the Kiprussoff story.  He didn’t want to leave Calgary because his wife just gave birth to their newborn baby a few weeks ago and now he’s said this will be his last year in the NHL and that he plans to retire.  Ok, fair enough.  But shouldn’t this have set forth a sense of panic in Jay Feaster’s brain?

We heard in the days leading up to the deadline that the Ottawa Senators were interested in forward Curtis Glencross and that they may be willing to part ways with Ben Bishop, a young netminder who has a lot of promise.  Hmmmm.  Sounds like the Flames need a goalie next season and Bishop would be around for year’s to come, someone to re-build around.

Today we get reports that the Flames received plenty of calls on Glencross but didn’t want to move him unless they were blown away by an offer.  I fail to see the value in Glencross as that type of player who would fetch a king’s ransom in order to acquire him.  He’s 30-years old and has never scored more than 26 goals or registered more than 48 points in a season.  His contract is attractive at just $2.55 million for the next two years and he plays an aggressive, gritty game that appeals to many clubs.

But if Feaster had the opportunity to part ways with Glencross for Bishop why did he not take it?  Feaster doesn’t want to use the word re-build.  Well what is it then Mr. Feaster?  A re-tool?  If that’s the case you then plan on holding on to guys like Alex Tanguay, Cory Sarich, Matt Stajan, Lee Stempniak and the aforementioned Cammalleri.  This cast of characters was not and is not strong enough to propel this club into the playoffs this year, next year or the year after that.  In fact, with every passing year with these burdening contracts weighing on the Flames books, those players are one year older and decline in production that much more.

Maybe this club will string together a few wins between now and the end of the season.  Produce enough points to climb the standings just far enough to take them out of the Seth Jones sweepstakes, should he go number one. Or lose out on Jonathan Drouin or Nathan MacKinnon, someone who could serve as a building block for this re-build or re-tool if you will.

Did Feaster not learn from his predecessors’ mistakes of handing out ridiculous free-agent contracts in the summer to players who are past their prime?  Dennis Wideman is the perfect example that perhaps Feaster is in over his head.

The return for both Iginla and Bouwmeester could be argued that Feaster could have gotten more, but we’ll save that debate for later this summer.

For now, the question needs to be asked if the Calgary Flames did enough unloading at this year’s deadline so that the re-build can be effectively carried out.  Looking at the baggage that remains, it’s easy to say that Feaster either has a pile of work to do in the summer to gut this roster and start from scratch or he’s willing to follow the footsteps of the previous GM and continue to make bad hockey decisions that will see his club meddle in the bottom of the conference, but not bad enough to acquire the top draft picks where players can make an immediate impact.

Jay Feaster shouldn’t have to look very far.  Just to the north to his provincial rivals to see how the re-build is done.  I”m not saying the Edmonton Oilers are perfect but years of misery and the top pick three year’s in a row has this club in much better shape this season.  That and the fact that they are playing like they many expected them too.  For the Flames, it may be hard to admit, but a re-build is the only term that is worth using.  Everything else will just lead them down the road to nowhere.

There were winners at this year’s deadline and there were losers.  We’ll examine who we feel deserve to be slotted under each category and we’ll start with the winners of this year’s NHL trade deadline.

It’s no surprise that the Pittsburgh Penguins are at the top of the winner’s list.  They only went out and acquired veterans Brenden Morrow, Jarome Iginla and Douglas Murray.  After superstar Sidney Crosby suffers a broken jaw and will miss the rest of the regular season, Ray Shero pulls the trigger on a deal that landed him Jussi Jokinen from the Carolina Hurricanes.  Talk about gearing up for a cup run, the Penguins are the epitome of that saying.

The Boston Bruins also have to be considered winners at this year’s deadline.  They addressed their need up front for a skilled winger by trading for veteran Jaromir Jagr after losing out on Morrow and Iginla.  Peter Chiarelli also acquired Wade Redden to help solidify their blue line.  They did all this by surrendering a few prospects and draft picks.

Speaking of the St. Louis Blues, they too were winners at the deadline.  They were said to be after a top-four defenseman and they got him in Jay Bouwmeester.  Prior to trading with Calgary, the Blues landed Jordan Leopold from the Buffalo Sabres.  They knew what they needed, went after and got it which then made Wade Redden expendable.

The San Jose Sharks should also be considered victorious based on the moves they made.  They parted ways with Douglas Murray last week then go and win five straight games which then prompted them to trade Ryane Clowe to the Rangers.  Not to leave themselves vulnerable of being  knocked out of a playoff position, they bring in Martin Erat and Scott Hannan from the Nashville Predators along with a plethora of high round draft picks.

Finally, the Columbus Blue Jackets had a successful trade deadline day by acquiring former all-star Marian Gaborik from the New York Rangers.  The Jackets nearly committed fan base suicide when they traded Rich Nash last summer and their stellar play lately that has them within striking distance of a playoff spot has rejuvenated their fans.  The organization stated prior to the deadline that they would be buyers, but only if it made sense; AKA, cautiously optimistic.  They then pulled in Gaborik another household name for fans to get excited about, providing continued positives surrounding the club.

Agree or disagree with these five winners?  Leave your comments below.  Check back later today and we’ll examine the five losers of the trade deadline.