OTG: Vinny/Heatley Rumors

With both Heatley and Lecavalier on the trade block, you can’t help but look for rumors, or even generate some scenarios yourself. The guys over at Outside the Garden have noted some interesting trade rumors involving Dany Heatley and Vinny Lecavalier. I am very cautious when posting rumors, because there are some places that generate rumors left and right that I just don’t trust. I tend to only post rumors or ideas from established writers, or established rumor websites (Spectors, TFP). OTG, not known for irresponsible rumormonging, has these rumors that aren’t the fan generated rumors.

With the news that Heatley would accept a trade to the Rangers , it makes it even tougher to not believe the rumors you hear. OTG is citing sources that say the following:

The players involved are Heatley(contract plus $4 mil bonus) to the Rangers for possibly Dubinsky, Stepan(on top line at Univ. of Wisconsin as a freshman),Voros(they like the “Neil Type”),and Rozsival.

I’m guessing there would be some draft picks exchanging hands here as well, as there’s no way that’s enough to get Heatley, but that’s an interesting trade rumor. Heatley is 28, is a repeat-50 goal guy, and is signed through the 2013/2014 season at a $7.5 million cap hit. The numbers, with the Naslund retirement, work out for this year and give the Rangers enough money to resign Cally. What I am unsure of is if this gives the Rangers enough cap room to resign Staal and Girardi in the following offseason, especially with more rumors of the cap going down again that year. It depends on the cap number.

The other, and much better, rumor involved Vinny:

Another rumor is for Vinny L.(who gets paid cash $10 mil each year for the next 7 years). Tampa needs defencemen and are leaning to take Redden off our hands(to then but him out). Other players going to Tampa are rumored to be Girardi, Grachev,Zherdev, and Potter.

This one is just incredible because it involves getting rid of Redden. Lecavalier is currently 29, signed through 2019-2020 at a $7.72 million cap hit. The good part about his contract is that it is incredibly front-loaded, like the Zetterberg deal, and Vinny only makes $4 million in 2017-2018, $1.5 million in 2018-2019, and $1 million in 2019-2020. The numbers in this deal work too because of Redden heading to Tampa. This is a very steep price, as there would almost definitely be draft picks exchanging hands here as well, but to get rid of Redden and add a top flight scorer, it almost seems like a no-lose scenario.

The sick thing about both these rumors, is that the numbers work for both deals on their own, AND if they manage to pull off both trades. Essentially, by combining both trades, you are looking at bringing in Heatley and Lecavalier in exchange for Redden, Girardi, Grachev, Zherdev, Potter, Dubinsky, Stepan, Voros, Rozsival. I’m not sure I’m sold on trading three of our top six defensemen, plus our seventh defenseman, but doing one of the deals (preferably the Vinny deal) would definitely be doable.

Thoughts?