Demitra-tastic!

Around and around the players go, what will happen next season? Nobody knows. So for an extra $1.25 million the Canucks basically replaced Brendan Morrison with Pavol Demitra (so the whole Naslund-Demitra Summit in June at a local watering hole was about Pavol taking over Markus's house for a couple of seasons?).

Obviously, Demitra finds it hard to stay healthy averaging 66 GP over the past three seasons but at least when he's in the lineup he averages close to a point per game. How much of that is playing with Marian Gaborik, we'll soon find out here, but he'll get his powerplay chances for sure being a right-handed shot.

Keeping Morrison was never on the cards even if he was cheaper. There is a reason he's a bargain. He did not produce the goods offensively (basically he's a 56-point guy over 82 GP) as in his West Coast Express prime. Add to that his nagging injuries finally caught up with him and he only got into 39 games in '97/08 after two straight 82 GP seasons.

The strange thing in all this is the Burkster is proving a perfect fit for the make Beliefs and really the soap opera in T.O. needs the Artist Formerly Known as Lardass and now known as simple "The Moron" (and I am quoting Kevin Lowe). The genius in his own mind somehow has parlayed Andy McDonald into Doug Weight and now Brendan Morrison just to save a few bucks. Given McDonald is only two years younger than Morrison and had 163 pts in his last two seasons with the Ducks, what's a few million more for McDonald?

Sure, it was all done to re-sign Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne, but was it really worth re-signing Selanne without keeping the center he had great chemistry with?

On that note, all the best, Brendan...except vs. the Pavolian one.