Bittersweet

That's kind of how I felt when I got wind last night that we had acquired Kris Versteeg from Toronto for the 1st and 3rd round draft picks. Bitter for obvious reasons, Versteeg was part of that asshole Chicago team that snatched our cup dreams away from us on our own ice. And he was pretty stellar against the Flyers in particular, posting I believe 5 points in 6 games against us in the finals. Dude even has a tattoo on his arm of the date he won the cup on his arm. But now by a strange turn of events, he calls Philly home now and presumably will until the end of next season, so we might as well get used to him. There is an up side to having a former Hawk on our team though...

Versteeg already has 35 points this year, 14 goals 21 assists. And he got them on one of the worst teams in the league. He doesn't have the supporting cast that he did in Chicago, Dave Bolland in particular, and he still manages to put up the points. He's not the biggest guy, and he's not the fastest guy, but he is pretty adept at being a pest. Picture Carcillo with JVR's talent and not as much temper and you got a pretty good idea of what Versteeg can do. And as for giving up the picks to get him, relatively speaking this next draft class is pretty weak and we would be in the bottom 10 to bottom 5 in the first round anyway so really this was a pretty good move to make. He's a very talented player and when he's surrounded by other talented players he can really flourish. He's a great compliment to the style that Richie likes to play, my prediction...Versteeg gets 7-12 goals at least before the playoffs start if he can buy into Lavy's system in time. 

Oh and a little side note...this is apparently how Tampa Bay's stadium decides to try and pump up their fans, I'm sure I'm not the only one that would probably walk out of the Wells Fargo Center if they every tried to pull shit shit on us.