Kuba was surprised by trade

By Bruce Garrioch - Ottawa Sun

Filip Kuba's trip from his home in the Czech Republic to Tampa next week will be nothing more than a detour.
Dealt to the Senators last Friday with Alexandre Picard and a No. 1 pick in the 2009 NHL draft by the Lightning for defenceman Andrej Meszaros, the veteran blueliner admits he was a little taken aback by the trade.
"Initially it was a little bit of a shock because of the timing," Kuba, speaking to an Ottawa reporter for the first time since the trade, told Sun Media last night. "I was looking forward to going to training camp in Tampa and I was getting ready to go. Then, my agent (Rich Evans) called me to let me know that I was going to Ottawa.
'THAT'S HOCKEY'
"It happened. That's hockey. Now, I have to get ready to start playing in Ottawa. I'm excited about it and I'm looking forward to it."

The 32-year-old Kuba, in the final year of a contract that will pay him $3 million US this season, thought with all the moves the new Tampa ownership group had made this off-season, his job would be safe there.
"There were a lot of changes and it's really almost a brand new team there," said Kuba, who will arrive in Ottawa next Sunday. "I was excited to go there with the new coach, new players and new ownership group, but now I have to get ready to go to Ottawa. I'm hoping I can do well with Ottawa."
Speaking to the Team 1200 on Thursday, former Lightning coach John Tortorella said he felt Kuba was going to get the chance to excel offensively with the Senators and that his best years in the NHL could be ahead of him.
Kuba had six goals and 25 assists last season, and 12 goals and 22 assists in 2006-07.
"(Kuba) brings a lot to the table," Evans said in an e-mail. "He can score goals and he's sound in his own zone. During his career, he has always logged key minutes on his team penalty-killing and power-play units. Knowledgeable hockey people like Filip Kuba a lot and he will give the Senators 22-24 quality minutes a night."
DRAFTED BY MURRAY
Kuba, who was drafted in the eighth round (192nd overall) by Senators GM Bryan Murray when Murray was Florida's GM in 1995, said he is looking forward to the challenge.
"I hope I can play a big role," said Kuba. "I know they've got a lot of talent on that team. I know Ottawa has a lot of offence already and if I can help, then that's great."
NOTES
The Senators named their roster for next weekend's rookie tournament, which includes Fs Jesse Winchester, Ilja Zubov, Alexander Nikulin and G Brian Elliott ... Pierre Dorion has been named the Senators' chief amateur scout. Dorion will be responsible for directing the scouts who cover the amateur ranks in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

How can he be surprised? I thought he had to waive his NTC.

Cap'n' Clutch wrote:How can he be surprised? I thought he had to waive his NTC.

Well, I don't thik he was given much of a choice, just like Dan Boyle.

God the posters at HockeyBuzz are f'ing moron's. They are so close minded it's not funny.

It's cause all the good ones are here now :D

Cap'n' Clutch wrote:It's cause all the good ones are here now :D

That's evident as ever now.

well hopefully it encourages more people to join here :D

Cap'n' Clutch wrote:well hopefully it encourages more people to join here :D

Well, then we might start complaining. The opinion pool is not very deep, it seems. There are too many people with free time and daffy opinions. In fact, I think that's almost a rule -- daffy opinions usually implies time on their hands. Enough philosophy.

I like this trade in the short-term. I strongly believe that Kuba will perform much like Meszaros would have done, had he stayed. Possibly even better. But we won't really know the full impact of this move until next year at the earliest. It is not very likely that we will re-sign Kuba to a 5-year deal at $4M. If we lose him to UFA for nothing, then it really hinges on whether Picard will be ready to fill in at the same level (i.e. 35-40 points on offense, decent-to-good defensively). Might be a stretch. As for the 1st round pick, unless we trade it to move up, we won't know for a few years where that takes us.

Sorry, what was this thread about?

Cap'n' Clutch wrote:How can he be surprised? I thought he had to waive his NTC.

Yeah, I thought I read that somewhere too. Good to see he can play the PK as well as the PP. I think our Pk will be very effective this year. Guys will definitely be paying the price to stand in front of Gerber. Having Phillips, Volchenkov, Smith, Schubert, and now Kuba clearing the crease will please our goalies greatly I imagine.

Hey Jam, you involuntarily kept me entertained at work this morning with all the back and forth bickering on HB. Morons indeed.

Speaking of hockeybuzz, did anyone catch Tolensky's article on the Mez trade and "are the Sens slipping?"
I can't believe something with such faulty reasoning and something so illogical is allowed to headline a website. I can't stand hockeybuzz...isn't tolensky a Leaf fan? Why is he even writing about the Sens?
Thats some unbiased journalism if I've ever seen it

cash wrote:Speaking of hockeybuzz, did anyone catch Tolensky's article on the Mez trade and "are the Sens slipping?"
I can't believe something with such faulty reasoning and something so illogical is allowed to headline a website. I can't stand hockeybuzz...isn't tolensky a Leaf fan? Why is he even writing about the Sens?
Thats some unbiased journalism if I've ever seen it

He does his blogs though from the pure standpoint of measured statistics. He wouldn't be able to tell that Meszaros struggled quite considerably last year in his own end because the NHL doesn't record that statistic.

That's the problem with mixing numbers (facts) and opinions.

cash wrote:Speaking of hockeybuzz, did anyone catch Tolensky's article on the Mez trade and "are the Sens slipping?"
I can't believe something with such faulty reasoning and something so illogical is allowed to headline a website. I can't stand hockeybuzz...isn't tolensky a Leaf fan? Why is he even writing about the Sens?
Thats some unbiased journalism if I've ever seen it

Did you see sparring I had going with that assbandit Prock?

Snuh wrote:

Cap'n' Clutch wrote:How can he be surprised? I thought he had to waive his NTC.

Yeah, I thought I read that somewhere too. Good to see he can play the PK as well as the PP. I think our Pk will be very effective this year. Guys will definitely be paying the price to stand in front of Gerber. Having Phillips, Volchenkov, Smith, Schubert, and now Kuba clearing the crease will please our goalies greatly I imagine.

Hey Jam, you involuntarily kept me entertained at work this morning with all the back and forth bickering on HB. Morons indeed.

It appears that Kuba never had a NTC. I did a quick search and found 2 sites (one being, of course, trusty NHLSCAP.com) that list players with movement clauses, and Kuba's name doesn't appear under the Tampa Bay or the Ottawa listings on either one:

http://nhlscap.com/no_trade.htm

http://www.thefourthperiod.com/trade_deadline/notrades.html

Snuh wrote:

Cap'n' Clutch wrote:How can he be surprised? I thought he had to waive his NTC.

Yeah, I thought I read that somewhere too. Good to see he can play the PK as well as the PP. I think our Pk will be very effective this year. Guys will definitely be paying the price to stand in front of Gerber. Having Phillips, Volchenkov, Smith, Schubert, and now Kuba clearing the crease will please our goalies greatly I imagine.

Hey Jam, you involuntarily kept me entertained at work this morning with all the back and forth bickering on HB. Morons indeed.

They shoot off their mouths without even knowing what is being discussed, plus neither of them had an open mind to what was being discussed. Then the little f'er proceeds to call me a kid that plays video games in my basement. Jokes on him, I don't even own a console and I wish I was a kid again, but unfortunately I'm a 34 for year old man with every day issues to deal with. LOL!

The sad thing too, is it was a good blog that had stated with good conversation, but like all threads over there they turn into pissing matches. I don't have the time or patience to deal with that sort of crap.

Glad I could entertain you though buddy. LOL!

rooneypoo wrote:

Snuh wrote:

Cap'n' Clutch wrote:How can he be surprised? I thought he had to waive his NTC.

Yeah, I thought I read that somewhere too. Good to see he can play the PK as well as the PP. I think our Pk will be very effective this year. Guys will definitely be paying the price to stand in front of Gerber. Having Phillips, Volchenkov, Smith, Schubert, and now Kuba clearing the crease will please our goalies greatly I imagine.

Hey Jam, you involuntarily kept me entertained at work this morning with all the back and forth bickering on HB. Morons indeed.

It appears that Kuba never had a NTC. I did a quick search and found 2 sites (one being, of course, trusty NHLSCAP.com) that list players with movement clauses, and Kuba's name doesn't appear under the Tampa Bay or the Ottawa listings on either one:

http://nhlscap.com/no_trade.htm

[url=http://www.thefourthperiod.com/trade_deadline/notrades.html

http://www.thefourthperiod.com/trade_deadline/notrades.html[/quote[/url]]

Wouldn't put too much faith in the 4th period, they still list Stillman with the senators ...

cash wrote:Speaking of hockeybuzz, did anyone catch Tolensky's article on the Mez trade and "are the Sens slipping?"
I can't believe something with such faulty reasoning and something so illogical is allowed to headline a website. I can't stand hockeybuzz...isn't tolensky a Leaf fan? Why is he even writing about the Sens?
Thats some unbiased journalism if I've ever seen it

Strange. I usually found his blogs very insightful. He usually does very good research -- perhaps he shot this one from the hip.

Meszaros had a huge turnaround to his +/- from last year. But he was still only something like a +5, no? That's hardly good considering he was playing on the second pairing, and not against the top line of the other teams. And while he recorded 100 hits and 100 blocked shots, we was barely there (100 and 102, I think). More worrysome, though, was that his hits had actually gone down from his second season (and down quite significantly from his rookie campaign). Usually you expect hits to go up, as the players gets more used to the fast pace and recognizes patterns in the opposition players and teams playbooks.

So, while some of the stats show an improvement in his play, it is far from a foregone conclusion that he will rebound to his rookie-year form.