big_e

Jack Johnson and Oleg Tverdovsky for Eric Belanger and Tim Gleason.

Was Jim Rutherford nuts?

He trades away one of the best NHL prospects for a 30-year old centre who has never scored more than 40 points in a season and was slated to become a UFA at season’s end and a defenseman who had scored only 2 goals in his first 120 games and is known and was drafted for his offensive abilities? What was he thinking?

Jack Johnson has the potential to become a franchise defenseman in the NHL. At 6’1” he isn’t the biggest guy, but he plays a lot bigger. He has an edge to his game, just look at the Canada/U.S. round robin game at the 2006 World Juniors. He has great offensive instincts and can put points on the board.

Carolina drafted him 3rd overall in 2005, behind only Sidney Crosby and Bobby Ryan. They obviously had high hopes for the guy, but dished him off only a year later.

Forget Pittsburgh, they could have had a potential dynasty down in Raleigh. With guys like Eric Staal, Andrew Ladd and Cam Ward, they already won a cup. Imagine if they would have kept Johnson around that would have been unreal. A potential franchise centre in Staal, a potential franchise winger and elite power forward in Ladd, a potential franchise D-Man in Johnson and a potential franchise goalie in Ward. They would have been set.

I know the ‘Canes were having some trouble getting him signed, but they could have gotten a helluva lot more for him than what they did. A lot of teams would have given up a lot for him and probably would have overpaid for him IMO.

I have a feeling in a couple of years people will look back and say “Carolina got those two nobodies for one of the top defenseman in the NHL?!”

When the dust settles how do you guys think this trade will look?