The Return of Chuck Kobasew

Last year when (thankfully) former Bruins G.M. Mike O’Connell traded the NHL’s best player, Joe Thornton, to San Jose in the middle of Thornton’s MVP season and thus pulled off the worst trade in Boston Professional Sports History (note: Bobby Orr wasn’t traded, he went to Chicago as a free agent) he further insulted us by aquiring three players who would all become unrestricted free agents at the end of the following (aka, this) season.

Now, out of the three players we got for MVP Joe Thornton only Marco Sturm remains… and his days are numbered.

Last night the Bruins swapped Brad Stuart and Wayne Primeau to Calgary for Andrew Ference and Chuck Kobasew.  Brad Stuart was the A list player who was supposed to make the Thornton insult more palatable.  Now he’s gone. 

The good news is Chuck Kobasew is coming back where he belongs.  Chuck played for Boston College, and if memory serves won an NCAA championship there, and he also played for the Lowell Lock Monsters during the NHL lock out two years ago.  He holds the Lowell record for goals in a season.

Oh yeah, he’s also got a broken elbow and is out for at least two more weeks.  Nice little postscript for this deal, huh?

I think either of these players in exchange for Wayne Primeau would have been okay.  I was not a Primeau fan prior to his coming to Boston, but he worked hard and earned my respect.  He did a better job than I expected he would and now I’m kind of sad to see him go.

However, neither of these players are in Stuart’s league.  Ference is pretty good, and I am a big Kobasew fan, but lets face it… Stuart is going to have a great career in the NHL and we are seriously going to miss him.  The unnerving part was the way he played while under the cloud of trade rumours.  Let’s face it, over the last few weeks he’s been pretty bad.  If the trade pressure is a sign of how he’d handle playoff pressure then this is probably a good deal.  Ference and Kobasew both went to game seven of the Stanley Cup finals the year before the lockout.  Stuart is the better player, but maybe the play offs will prove me wrong.

So welcome back to civilization Chuck Kobasew.  It’s good to have you back.