To Be or Not To Be..A Hall of Famer

Mark Recchi has played for multiple teams in his lengthy career. He has had stints with Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and has also played for teams like Montreal, Carolina, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and as of now the Boston Bruins. For every team who has acquired him, he’s made his presence known. So is a player like Recchi deserving of a spot in the Hockey Hall of Fame? My answer, yes.

Recchi has already reached the one-thousand game plateau and is currently seventeen games shy of fifteen-hundred career games. Each season, the amount of goals he scores varies. He’s been a fifty goal scorer, a two time forty goal scorer, and has had eight 30+ goal seasons. At this point in his career he has even said himself, he scores goals from creating traffic in front of the net, which is exactly where the Bruins need him to be.

The Black and Gold received Recchi on March 4th, and he has played in eleven games with seven goals in a Bruins jersey. He has really been a great pick up for the team.

Besides the offense and powerplay presence Recchi brings, one of the most key things about him is his experince in the NHL and in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Bruins are a young based team and his experience and a veteran leadership can only add to the success of the Bruins heading into the post season.

Recchi has had a lot of success in his career, including the one thing every player dreams of, lifting Lord Stanley.

Anyone can say that a player deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, but with his name on two Stanley Cups, a seven time all star, and in most seasons a productive goal scorer, it’s a given that he deserves a spot.

Who to Trade?

The Boston Bruins are in first place in the Eastern Conference and have been for most of the 2008-2009 season. As of March 1st, the Bruins haven’t made a deal with any players from other teams or shipped anyone out of Boston , yet.

If it were to happen, who would it be? There has been a lot of talk about players like defenseman Chris Pronger and Tomas Kaberle, and forward Keith Tkachuk. The only problem with trying to add to this Bruins roster is who are they willing to part with? This season has been so successful alrealdy, would adding or subtracting from the team mess with the chemistry?

The Bruins are a pretty solid team this year. They have seven defenseman who each bring something different to the table. At the same time, injuries seem to occur more often than not to the Bruins. So if you bring in a defenseman like Kaberle or Pronger, who do you sit out? That’s the thing, you don’t.

The Bruins, if anything, need a left-handed forward who can score some goals, or even a righty who plays left wing. Guys like Kovalchuk, Gaborik, and St. Louis are a few players I wouldn’t mind seeing suit up in a Bruins uniform. For players like that you’d have to take in consideration of who you’d need to give up in order to get them. The Bruins have a supply of young players that they have not only drafted, but also playing for the Providence Bruins and in Boston now. The Bruins could offer a draft pick in 2009, defenseman Matt Lashoff, and forward Marty Karsums to get one of these power forwards.

Names like Phil Kessel and Vladimir Sobotka have been thrown out there as well. Two players like these, are two I would not want to see go. Kessel was on pace for a 30 to 35 goal season before being sidelined with mononucleosis, and hard-hitting forward Sobotka, could be a future top forward for the Bruins.

Now, while General Manager Peter Chiarelli has already said he isn’t trading Manny Fernandez just yet, I say why not trade him, free up some cap space, and call up promising goaltender Tuukka Rask from Providence. Rask has proven on multiple occasions he can handle himself well in between the pipes, and this would free up some money to bring in a player like Martin St. Louis.

Whatever the personnel in the hub of hockey decide to do, they have one day to do so, and it may or may not impact this team heading into playoffs.