Thursday Morning Cupcheck - Brad Richards = Win

by Todd Maternowski

Top of the manana, hockey fans! Last week we learned, we laughed, we loved: and we went over some terrific, inspired ideas on how the NHL could forcibly mandate higher offensive production. I was planning on dedicating this week's column to my Annual Lamentation of the Women, in which I bemoan the Stars' yearly deadline deals as either (a)terrible, (b)lacking in forethought or (c)the single most moronic move ever made not involving the Toronto Maple Leafs. Usually, at this time of year the grieving and girlish crying can be heard clearly for a five-mile radius, as the Stars somehow manage to trade their top young talent for some unmotivated schlub banished to the third line on his Southeastern Division team. Trade Deadline Day is generally not among my favorite days in hockey.

This past Tuesday, however, was anything but the soul-crushing, spirit-muffing cold gray time of morbid pain that Stars fans had come to expect. In fact, for the first time in recent memory, it was quite the opposite: by any reasonable measure, the Dallas Stars actually came out of the deadline as the biggest winners in the NHL. In a single move --trading a backup goalie, a fourth-line center and a shootout specialist for one of the top 10 players in the NHL and a backup goalie-- the Stars washed away the frigid memories of their checkered trading record, proverbially dumping the corpses of poor past trades out of their proverbial trunk and into the Shallow Ditch of Forgotten Deals. Frankly, I'm still a little amazed, and for once, even giddy as a roided-up schoolgirl as I anxiously await the result of the Richards/Holmqvist acquisition.

The addition of Forsberg and Foote should provided much-needed pep to the Avs' lineup

Quick caveat: I should, for purposes of full media disclosure, be the sole member of the Dallas hockey writing elite to admit that I also liked the Nagy and Norstrom trades. Those two players had given the Stars fits for years, and at the time, I was seriously poofing out my chest, spouting hockey-related trash talk at anyone who would listen, on the merits of those two. As it happens, Nagy was perhaps the worst trade in Stars history [that whole Arnott thing looked pretty bad in hindsight, too], while Norstrom has been serviceable --especially with Zubov and Boucher out of the lineup-- but hardly the dominating, always-frustrating figure towering over the defensive zone that he was every shift in LA. I'll admit I also liked the Turgeon and Arnott trades for that exact same reason --both were personally responsible for ousting us in two playoff runs with NJ and the Blues-- and those didn't exactly pan out the way they could have. But moving on...

With my former predictions a bit suspect, I needed an unwavering voice of wisdom to provide me with direction in these overly-exciting times. But who is that voice that can read the future as quickly and easily as I can injure myself with a hammer? Who is that voice of mystical reason that can silence the roaring waves of mouth-breathing stupidity? Who's had more spot-on hockey predictions than I've had hot meals?

Of course, there's only one answer to all of the above: the ZuboZen Koanator 3000. A device forged deep in the hellish forges of Dol Gildur, the unholy offspring of my aborted attempts at a chocolate-milk-powered lightsaber and my NHL Cool Zone, and fueled by a Piece of the True Zubov, the ZuboZen Koanator 3000 is unlike anything else in the Material Plane. Knowing that this trade sounded almost too good to be true, I plugged the zen-fernal device in, poured in the special mixture of Bio-Sergei (an unholy concoction of chocolate milk, condor blood and Scarlett Johansson's chest-sweat), and --averting my unworthy eyes-- flipped the ONSKI switch.

The machine groaned and grunted like two moose performing unspeakable sexual acts with a malarial yeti, before the familiar zeneriffic whirs and clicks indicated that the ZuboZen Koanator 3000 was ready and willing to answer any and all of my hockey-related questions. So without further ado, I asked the single most vexing question on the minds of serious Stars fans everywhere: "'Sup?"

ZuboZen Koanator 3000:

In Winter, hundreds of pucks

In summer, thousands of tears

If useless banners do not hang in your mind,

Any season is a good one for you

Terrific! I saw it was working like a charm. I knew in the mucous-encrusted safe-deposit box of my mind, that Brad Richards was the Stars' next Joe Nieuwendyk, but I desperately needed to hear it from someplace else, someplace I could trust. So my next question was thus: "Will Brad Richards win the 2008 Conn Smythe Trophy en route to a long-awaited Stars' Stanley Cup?" Without a moment's hesitation, this is what the Koanator spit out:

The body is a Cup Stanley

The soul is a shining trophy:

Polish it with goals

Or dust will dull the image

Words to live by, to be sure. Fresh off two crystal-clear answers to two difficult questions, I was pumped and ready to feed it this one: "With Modano and Zubov near the end of their careers, and Ribeiro, Morrow, Richards and the Young Defensemen all in their 20s and locked up for years, what sort of success can the Stars hope for after this season?" The device wheezed a bit, before coming back with this gem:

If Bettman sees that you have a Cup, he will give it to you.

If Bettman sees that you have no Cup, he will take it away from you.

Pictured: an early prototype of the ZuboZen Koanator 3000 was even bigger than ENIAC

Exactly the sort of clear-cut answer all Stars fans are craving. Running low on my Bio-Sergei fuel (fortunately, with my hunky good looks getting that Scarlett-sweat is a walk in the park. Remember, kids: chicks dig hockey writers), I had just enough for one more question. Choosing my words as carefully as a serial killer crafting a encoded ransom letter, I finished my futurific session with this crumpet of forbidden knowledge: "ZuboZen Koanator 3000, should I just go ahead right now and bet my life's savings on the Stars winning it all in 2008?" The answer should surprise no one:

A broken mirror never reflects again;

Fallen flowers never return to old branches.

With closed eyes and open wounds,

The Stars will see more Cups than Bonds and Clemens

Content with those answers, I flipped the OFFSKI switch, and returned the sacred device to that space in my closet between the stack of Batman comics translated into Toltec and my life-sized cardboard cutout of Kevin Garnett with a milk mustache, full on the knowledge that the Richards trade will be one of the best in Stars' history. There's no doubt it will bear more fruit than the Penguins acquiring Hossa for 20 games and a first-round exit, or the Sharks getting Brian Campbell before he tearfully returns to Buffalo in the off-season; come June, it will be a good time to be a Stars fan. Tune in next week when I demand Tom Hicks spend even more money that isn't mine in the acquisition of expensive talent!