Deal breaks down as follows:
To Calgary Flames:
Cam Ward (G)
Daniel Girardi (D)
Travis Moen (F)
2010 3rd Round Pick
To New York Islanders:
Miikka Kiprusoff (G)
$3.9M
2009 3rd Round Pick
Why we did this:
In our opinion, we acquired an elite-level goaltender today. We did give up a much younger goalie in the deal, but we do not believe that Ward and Kiprusoff are in the same tier of goalies in the NHL. Kiprusoff is in the highest tier among NHL goalies along with guys like Luongo, Lundqvist, Nabokov, Garon, etc. while Ward is probably in the next tier below with guys like Vokoun, Lehtonen, etc.
You have to give to get, and today we got one of the best goalies in the game (despite what the majority on CP may think after less than 10 games played!), but we did have to give up three assets in order to make the deal work.
Also, this is the type of deal I've been looking to make for a while now since every other aspect of the team has been shaken up seriously in the past without producing the type of results we're looking for. The only constant throughout all the moves has been Cam Ward.
Cheers to Mike for being a good sport throughout the negotiations and we're actually very confident that this deal ends up working for both teams nicely, giving us a true number one goalie finally, while giving the CPHL Flames some much needed depth throughout their roster adding two contributors to their lineup without giving up any one.
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