In case you missed it, Andy McDonald was shipped out to St. Louis today for Doug Weight.
It’s a swap of struggling players and, depending on your point of view, was either a very shrewd means to the goal of dumping salary or a needless jettisoning of a popular player.
Mac had marginal bragging rights on Jean-Sebastien Giguere as the Ducks’ longest-tenured player. He had just become a dad. He was a quiet guy who never wore a “C” or even an “A” on his jersey, but was clearly pretty popular. You got the feeling nobody wanted to see him traded. Asked if the trade brought any resolution, Todd Marchant said “not really.” Read between the lines: “I’m glad it wasn’t me, but – not Andy!”
On the other hand, most prognosticators had the Ducks ditching Mathieu Schneider, Francois Beauchemin, Sean O’Donnell, even Marchant in a salary dump for draft picks. Getting the tagging room plus an actual player – a veteran player with a damn good resume, if not fresh legs – has to be a better scenario for the team.
I’m not sure what to expect from Weight at this point in his career; I only remember him as a damn good player in Edmonton a decade ago. Marchant, his Oilers teammate for eight years, called him “a tremendous player … and certainly a great teammate.”
Brad May called him “a superstar.”
We’ll see.
