[Itse]

(Eh, I started to make a short comment and it kind of got out of hand and slightly off topic. Sorry. Hope at least somebody bothers to read it anyway.)

I agree with the people who feel that hockey has had much of the emotion sucked out of it, but I don't think it has much to do with physicality, and is simply the combined effect of the trade market drying up and guaranteed contracts.

It used to be that players on losing teams were constantly under the threat of trades, and players generally hate being traded. That was something the GM and the coach could use as the ultimate hammer to smack some effort into players. Now Treliving is more in risk of losing his job than any player on the roster. Pretty easy for complacency to set in.

There's also less to play for without trades. Trade deadline used to be a pretty crazy time, and guys in situations like Wideman is in now essentially knew they were going to get traded, only question was where. That can be a distraction for a player, but also motivation. Even on a bad team, if you stood out in a good way, a contender might pick you up for a run at the cup. Even 4th liners like Bouma and Hathaway were moved regurarly.

Trades also made it possible for teams to get significantly better midseason. So maybe the team you're supposed to be carrying isn't THAT hot, but if you drag your team to a position where you're a buyer, you could get some better players around you. Of course most of the time it didn't make that much of a difference, but it was something to think look forward to.

To sum up, the possibility of trades meant Stuff Could Happen. The 82 game season didn't use to be feel this long. Without roster changes, it's really pretty much just a grind.

Now we're debating whether or not ANYONE gets moved at or before trade deadline. That's 82 games from start to finish with essentially the same roster, playing mostly against other non-changing rosters.

Bring up Jankowski and fire Gulutzan. That's what we're talking about because that's pretty much the extent of what can still happen this season, at least before the playoffs come around.

It also used to be much easier to fool yourself into thinking your team could make a splash in the playoffs, when the teams actually changed during the season. Now, you need some really serious flame-coloured glasses to think the Flames could make it further than round 2 at the very best. Kind of hard to get excited about that.

In this light, I feel like the game would be better off without guaranteed contracts. Not sure how big of a difference it would make, but at least it would help give the coaches and GM's some power again, and give the teams more options for making moves.

For fans, these days of waiting for those overpriced multiyear contracts to run out and waiting for your 4-5 key prospects to grow up because it's really the only significant change likely to happen...

Watching a rebuild happen is too much like watching the grass grow.