Jakub Petruzalek (Chris Rutsch photo)
The New York Rangers today swapped 21-year-old Czech forward Jakub Petruzalek to the Carolina Hurricanes for 29-year-old Canadian do-nothing Brad Isbister.
Petruzalek, a 9th-round pick with an AHL contract and virtually no leverage, has been bounced around this year between Charlotte and Hartford, totalling 12 points in 13 games between the two teams. Not a likely NHL-er, Petruzalek accepted an AHL contract to come over from the Czech Republic to play in Hartford this year, and now finds himself unceremoniously sent down the river to another organization.
Isbister, a veteran of 467 games in the NHL, has been playing this year with the Albany River Rats and will report to the Hartford Wolf Pack, where apparently he's to provide some veteran stability to a 5-11 team laden with youngsters. One can only guess that Isbister also provides some type of insurance at forward for the parent Rangers-- otherwise, as Dubi at Blueshirt Bulletin puts it, if all they were looking to do was put some veterans on the Wolf Pack, they could've continued to sign bums like Chris Ferraro for free.
Basically, a Wolf Pack team with hardly any Europeans-- much less a single Russian player-- gets another big, useless, underachieving North American guy that we can all boo heavily until the day he either scores a goal or beats up somebody.
In Thanksgiving news, today I bought a really big turkey, which I promptly nicknamed Hugh Jessiman.
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