Battle Of Hudson

Newest Devil Tuomo Ruutu (TSN.ca)

It seems like as Devil fans we go through this kind of thing every year on trade deadline day, while all the teams around us make splashy deals like Montreal with Thomas Vanek or the Rangers with the long-rumored Ryan Callahan plus two high picks for Martin St. Louis swap, the Devils always seem to make the under-the-radar deal for a good role player – which Tuomo Ruutu qualifies as.  Though just when you come to expect the Devils to do nothing, they throw out an occasional big-name surprise like trading for Doug Gilmour back in the day, or Ilya Kovalchuk more recently.  This wasn’t one of those deadlines, as trading Andrei Loiktionov and a conditional third-rounder (in 2017!) for Ruutu was our only move of the day.  Before I get to that deal, I’ll talk about what wasn’t done – starting with the Martin Brodeur saga.

Over the last forty-eight hours all Devil fans have gone through a roller coaster of emotions wondering whether Brodeur would be traded, debating should he be traded and if he’s not traded what his role on this team should be going forward.  Although a possible Brodeur trade’s been in the wind for a while things blew up early yesterday morning with reports in the Daily News and on WFAN that a Brodeur to Minnesota trade was imminent.  As soon as that came out, his start last night at home against the Wings took on a symbolic meaning.  A game that was set to be a 14,000 attendance game (going by secondary market prices) turned into a sellout as demand for tickets shot through the roof in the twenty-four hours before the game.  Just my luck that I had a previous engagement I couldn’t get out of and was unable to attend, since last night turned into a storybook finish after Stephen Gionta‘s tiebreaking goal with just 36.6 seconds remaining in regulation that blew the roof off the building – and nearly sent Chico Resch into excited shock during the call – paving the way for a 4-3 win that not only kept the Devils alive in the playoff race but gave Brodeur a possible feel-good finish to his Jersey tenure.

It wasn’t long after the game however, where the Brodeur trade saga again took center stage with a report by Darren Dreger that Brodeur had submitted a list of eight teams he’d okay a trade to and more cryptic comments by Marty after the game all but overtly saying he’d welcome a move, even if he was going to be just a backup on another team and saying ‘no matter what happens tomorrow, I’ll always be a Devil’.  As much as Lou wants to trash the media over irresponsible reporting the way he did yesterday in the wake of the Brodeur to Minnesota rumors, the fact is the media didn’t invent Marty’s own comments over the last weeks and months, where the goalie bemoaned his decreasing playing time and all but literally asked for a trade with the number of times he made reference to being intrigued by the idea and wanting to play more.  How Marty will handle not being traded today remains to be seen, but it seems as if management’s going full bore trying to keep him happy again with two starts in the last three games and comments like coach Pete DeBoer claiming that Cory Schnieder never took over the #1 job even when he got eight straight starts, or Lou claiming Marty’s win total proves he can still get the job done in this league (never mind the team scores 3+ goals for Marty and >2 for Cory).  So it appears we’re now back to a 50-50 split after Cory finally gave up 3+ goals in a game for the first time in almost two months, wonderful.

Another non-change that’s annoying is of course the defensive logjam, which seems destined to keep Adam Larsson in Albany for the remainder of the season now with eight defensemen on the roster as is.  And despite all Eric Gelinas has done for the Devils’ power play and offense from the blueline, he was again benched last night after taking a third-period penalty and is always one DeBoer twitch away from the doghouse.  When the Devils don’t have Larsson or Gelinas in the lineup, they only ice two defensemen under thirty in the lineup – Jon Merrill and Mark Fayne, who himself isn’t a speedster per se.  Teams with speed give us fits, especially with our equally slow forward core which got slower with the subtraction of Loiktionov and the addition of Ruutu.  To be fair, I’ve always liked the feisty Finn and with Loiktionov a restricted FA and clearly not one of the key players here in New Jersey, he was likely to leave sooner or later anyway.  So player-for-player it’s an upgrade of course…and Ruutu adds a dimension only the injury-prone Ryane Clowe gives us up front.  However adding Ruutu only exacerbates our age and lack of speed, given that we have just four fowards in the starting lineup (when healthy) under 30 now – centers Travis Zajac and Adam Henrique along with wingers Steve Bernier and Damien Brunner.  Do the math – four forwards and two defensemen equal just six of the eighteen players in our starting lineup that are under thirty years old.  Lou’s taken his repeated dictum of ‘age being just a number’ a wee bit too far at this point, despite the smashing success of Jaromir Jagr as a FA signing this year.

One other thing that’s scary vis-a-vis Lou’s acquisition of Ruutu is his conract, though the GM admitted Carolina was retaining some of Ruutu’s $4.75 million salary over the last two plus years of his deal.  Giving up a third-rounder annoyed me, until I found out the third-rounder was a conditional one in 2017…that’s four drafts away if you do the math.  Clearly Lou didn’t want to give up any upcoming picks given our lack of a first-rounder this year and some of the other picks we’ve traded away recently, which was the right call.  Still, when he was asked about not acquiring a scorer at the deadline Lou claimed Ruutu was a scorer citing his 26 goals in 2008-09.  I guess what happened five years ago is more relevant than Ruutu’s last three seasons where he’s put up just twenty-seven goals and fifty-nine points in 146 games.  That’s about a thirty-point pace over almost two full seasons….and with a combined -28 to boot including a -19 this year (though it’s hard to gauge how good or bad defensively anyone is on those Carolina teams).  Despite his pricetag, Ruutu’s not a scorer at this point, though he does have more shootout success (9/22) than anyone on our roster right now, which might help if we have to go to the dreaded skills competition down the stretch.  Still though, he only has two twenty-goal seasons in his career.  Calling Ruutu a scorer is insulting all our intelligence.

To sum up, did Lou meet his goal of making the team better today than yesterday…yes.  Did he give up anything that’s going to kill our future?  No.  In that respect I can’t complain about getting Ruutu and doing nothing else from a short-term perspective.  However, the inaction in regards to dealing Marty and the inability or inaction to clear our defensive logjam could have long-term reprecussions and that isn’t thrilling.  Not to mention the organization’s continuing to cater to Marty could have some short-term reprecussions as well.  As glad as I am he wasn’t traded – particularly to Minnesota –  if things continue the way they are with Brodeur carping about his number of starts and eventually winning his way with Lou and Pete, it might be best for all parties considered if Brodeur goes elsewhere next year, since it’s obvious at this point Marty sees a future for himself beyond this year, and not as a backup.  Sadly Derek knows this scenario all too well with what happened during Mark Messier‘s final days as a Ranger where he still ran the organization despite having diminished as a player.  Of course it’s easier to hide a subpar forward than subpar goaltending which makes it even more imperative that someone in the organization put their foot down, and fast.  After Cory had one outing in the last two months where he gave up more than two goals (against an excellent Shark team no less), he’s been benched two of the last three games, possibly three of four.  While Marty’s earned his way back in the rotation, he should no longer be the head of it.

Will it happen and should it happen, are unfortunately two different questions with probably different answers.