"Refresh" Button Surrenders

Well kids, this is it. Expect minimal productivity over the next 24 hours or so as we get sucked into the trade deadline vortex.

I'm following Spector's Hockey, with an eye to the TSN Tradecentre page.

Hopefully, I can complete this post before something more exciting than a Craig Rivet trade occurs.

I sincerely believe Muckler is going to have to pull off something huge. If the team can't make it out of the second round, it's going to be his ass. Bryan Murray, finding himself in a somewhat similar position, made the same point to the media recently:

"The biggest thing to me always has been the message you send to your team," said Sens coach Bryan Murray. "[Carolina] went out and got two veteran guys [Doug Weight and Mark Recchi last season before winning the Cup] who'd played and had a reputation. It was: 'Hey, see, we told you. We're trying to win here.'

To date, the most dramatic deadline move the team has made involved Marshall Johnston sending Ron Tugnutt and Janne Laukkanen to Pittsburgh for Tom Barasso. The move was a bust, but you had to admire Johnston's courage in trying to address the Senators post season ills - playoff goaltending and stanley cup experience - with a controversial move.

Here's the current roster, color coded according to my deadline preferences.

Left Wing / Centre / Right Wing
Dany Heatley / Jason Spezza / Chris Neil
Peter Schaefer / Mike Fisher / Daniel Alfredsson
Antoine Vermette / Mike Comrie / Chris Kelly
Christoph Schubert / Dean McAmmond / Patrick Eaves
Brian McGrattan / Josh Hennessy (M)

Defence / Defence
Anton Volchenkov / Chris Phillips
Andrej Meszaros / Wade Redden
Tom Preissing / Joe Corvo

Goaltenders
Ray Emery
Martin Gerber
Kelly Guard

Colour Code:
Red: Do Not Trade On Penalty of Death
Yellow: Dangle With Discretion
Green: Do You Have A Used Couch You'd Like Us To Drive to the Landfill?

As far as my wish list goes, it's real short. There is no tonic out there capable of preventing blown 2 and 3 goal leads - if there were, I'd be offering up any superfluous organs on my person to obtain one. Instead, what is urgently needed is someone who can play on the top line with Heatley and Spezza. Just about everyone short of Emery has played up there this season and none have been able to find the back of the net with any consistency. The asking price is ticking up by the minute.

Over to you, BoO readers...