In all sports draft picks become players, players get traded so forth and so on. Like a stone thrown into a pond, there are ripples that reverberate out into the wake of the future.

With the 18th pick in the 1980 NHL entry draft the Boston Bruins selected Barry Pederson. Considering that he went on to have the 10th most career NHL points from that draft, it would be safe to assume that the Bruins got value out of this draft pick.  That, my friend would be the understatement of the NHL century. Some Bruins fans may lament the the trade of Joe Thornton. He was the former #1 Pick and corner stone of the franchise. Reluctant to sign Jumbo Joe to a jumbo sized contract after years of coming up small in the playoffs, the Bruins shipped him to San Jose for what really was pennies on the dollar*. More seasoned Bruins fans remember the Bruins making a similar trade, only being on the other side. In a trade that is widely considered one of the greatest thefts in NHL history, the Bruins traded Pederson to the Vancouver Canucks for Cam Neely and Vancouver’s first round pick in the 1987 NHL draft.

A little bit of background on the deal, Barry Pederson was an offensive dynamo for the Bruins,  in his first 3 full seasons he played 237 games, scored 129 goals along with 186 assists. Pederson had some back luck with a tumor on his shoulder that cost him a vast majority of the ’84-85 season. He bounced back with a respectable season in ’85-86, but the Bruins were wary of his future. Vancouver, in desperate need for a true scorer made the aforementioned, and the rest is history.

Really, this was highway robbery. Pederson only lasted 4 seasons with the Canucks, and was never the same player. Neely blossomed into a star, and to boot… the Canucks pick turned into the #3 pick in the draft. The funny thing is, they were a mere 2 points ahead of the Buffalo Sabers and the New Jersey Devils for the worst record and what could have been the #1 pick. Just to digress for a second, the prize of the 1987 NHL entry draft was Pierre Turgeon. While Turgeon turned out to be a fine NHL player (a bit of a understatement, he was superb on offense), he was considered to be the next great player going into the draft. They hype around him (and remember, this was pre-internet) was equal to that of Sydney Crosby. Had the Bruins landed him, who knows what would have come (can you imagine him and Neely?). With the #3 pick the Bruins took Glen Wesley, who was an excellent 2 way defenseman who helped the Bruins go to the Stanley Cup finals twice.

There, done…Neely and Wesley for Barry Pederson. For a player who’s best days were behind him, the Bruins got a franchise icon and a very solid player. I have never met a Canucks fan, but I would assume that they are pretty bitter over this. Yet, if we continue to peel away, the Bruins would reap even more reward form this already one-sided trade.

You see, in 1994, the Bruins traded Glen Wesley to the Hartford Whalers (R.I.P.) for 3 first round picks (’95,’95′,97).

In 1995, with the 9th pick acquired from the Whalers, the Bruins selected Kyle McLaren. Solid, one way defenseman, traded to San Jose in 2003 (after a bitter contract dispute) for a pair of Jeffs, Hackett and Jillson. The next season, the Bruins traded Jeff Jilson back to San Jose for Brad Boyes. Boyes was a nice goal scorer, who the Bruins surprisingly traded, after scoring 26 goals for them in ’05-06 to St. Louis for Dennis Wideman. This one was a real head scratcher, as the Bruins lacked goal scorers, and Boyes  had shown quite a bit of skill. Still, the Bruins said that they needed a puck moving defenseman and to be honest, in the ’06-07 season, they sucked. Now at first this trade looked like a big mistake, as Boyes went on to score plenty of goals in STL, but in ’08-09 Wideman had a fantastic season (as did most of the Bruins), but then took a big step back the next season. Going into the 2010 NHL draft, the Bruins had the #2 pick from Toronto as a part of the Phi Kessel trade (a future column?). A couple days before the draft, the Bruins shipped Wideman and their own first round pick #15 to Florida for Nathan Horton and Gregory Campbell.  As of right now, that one looks like another gem for the Bruins.

Now, on to the 1996 pick, #8 in the draft, the Bruins took Johnathan Aitken. This one did not turn out to well. Aitken would go on to play 44 games in his NHL career (3 with the Bruins) and get a grand total of 1 assist. Let’s move on…

With the 1997 pick, #8 overall (so the Bruins got 3 top 1o picks for Wesley) the Bruins took Sergei Samsonov (the Bruins also had the #1 pick in the draft from a result of them sucking, and took Joe Thornton… who there is still more to come on).  Here is where I need to take a brief turn and discuss another phenomena, sports cards. In the early 1990′s the industry took off.  New brands were popping up every year, and each brand would cover each sport and put out multiple different brands within the brand. It was a crazy time I tell you. The corollary effect of this was, kids were being somewhat educated on the upcoming prospects. This was a big deal because Hockey players were flooding over from Europe and the only way us young fans learned about them was from their cards (and Beckett). Samsonov was one of the most hyped guys. For some reason, he played a season in the IHL (abnormal for a Russian prospect) and got lots of American press for the year leading up to the draft. When the Bruins netted the two most talked about prospects, thousands of boston area kids dished out all of their allowance in an attempt to get Thornton and Samsonov cards. Needless to say, it seemed that the Bruins had drafted what would be their goal scoring future. Samsonov was undersized, but very skilled. He went on to win the Calder Trophy, while Thornton took more time to develop. Samsonov was a fan favorite, and he scored goals reasonably well, but the Bruins were going nowhere and he was traded to Edmonton in 2006 for Marty Reasoner, Yan Stastny and the Oilers second round pick in 2006 NHL draft.

With the 50th pick in the 2006 NHL draft, the pick acquired in the Samsonov deal, the Boston Bruins selected…. wait for it…..

Milan Lucic.

To recap.. the Bruins traded Barry Pederson for….

Franchise Icon, and current team President, Cam Neely and 7 quality season of Glen Wesley.

Wesley became 3 top 10 picks that eventually spawned current Bruins Nathan Horton, Gregory Campbell and Milan Lucic.

Now that is what you call, return on investment.

*the Thornton trade, in return for him the Bruins got Marco Sturm, Wayne Primeau and Brad Stuart. They traded Stuart  (who was never going to re-sign with Boston when his contract was up) and Primeau to Calgary for Chuck Kobasew and Andrew Ference. The Bruins flipped Kobasew to the Wild for Alexander Fallstrom (?), Wild 2nd round pick in 2011 (who knows?) and Craig Weller. The Bruins sent Weller along with Byron Bitz and a 2nd round pick to Florida for Dennis Seidenberg, Matt Bartkowski. So in the end, directly and indirectly the Bruins did end up with 2 of their 6  current defensemen for Thornton. Not exactly Neely, Horton, Campbell and Lucic..but not nearly as bad as we originally thought after the deal.

Happy Birthday to the following…..

Evander Holyfield, 1962. He must get a plethora of gifts with his 37 children.

Jon Favreau, 1966. “Couples Retreat” was a mistake big guy.

Chris Kattan, 1970. The king of laughing at himself on SNL.

Keith Foulke, 1972. The uncrowned MVP of the 2004 World Series. Never gets the proper credit for all he did in 2004 for the Red Sox. I appreciate you buddy.

Michael Young, 1976. Keep up the good work, beat the Yankees.

Oh and one more person……

Me. 34.

Mitch Williams, on MLB Network made an interesting comment bout Tim Lincecum’s masterful outing last night. Only 3 of his 14 3rd strikes, were in fact, strikes. He went on to say something along the lines of, “you get guys out with balls”.  It got me thinking, and no… not about dudes hitting each other over the heads with their nut sacks. What strike out is cooler, the “swing and miss” or the “caught looking”.

I don’t think either one is better, in fact the result is the same. However, I truly love the called third strike. I guess there is something about fooling the guy SOO badly that he doesn’t even swing. Of course, it is almost as cool when the batter swings at a pitch that dives out of the strike zone. So for me, the art of making it look like it is going to be a ball, is much cooler than the art of making it look like it is going to be a strike.

It’s great when you see a guy way behind of 100MHP heat, but I would rather see knees buckle at the sight of uncle charlie.

Just my preference. What is yours?

I have to say, I was SHOCKED when I heard the news that the Patriots were in trade talks with the Vikings over Randy Moss. Logic would seem to be that  IF the Patriots wanted to trade Moss, it would have happened before the season started. Now Patriot fans are left wondering what the hell is going on. One thing I know is that Bill Belichick knows more about football than I do. However, I like to pretend like I know something, so let’s take a look at the “action and reaction” of the Moss trade.

#1- Regardless of what happens, the Patriots got very little in return. Assuming the Vikings improve with Moss, the pick is likely to be in the lower half of the 3rd round. The Patriots also gave the Vikings a 7th round pick, but that is pretty much a throw away (especially with the amount of picks the Patriots have in the upcoming draft).

#2- The prevailing logic from NFL analysts is that opposing teams will no longer have to worry as much about the deep threat. This will allow them to play more men in the box, and in theory will crowd things for Welker et al. I agree with this, however there is a flip side to that coin. Perhaps having Moss draw double coverage was preventing the Patriots from going deep. It seems as if almost every deep ball was thrown to Moss, ergo every deep ball was thrown into double coverage. Perhaps having teams tighten up on the short stuff will in fact open up the long ball for someone like Brandon Tate. This is wishful thinking at best. Sure it’s possible Tate is ready to step up, but this is a question mark, AT BEST.

#3- What does Tom Brady think about this? One would think that the Patriots would not make this deal without his blessing. Is this going to motivate him, or is he going to revert to 2006 Brady. Remember, in ’06 Brady routinely pouted and yelled when Caldwell dropped balls. I really hope Brady was on board with this trade, maybe he sees things in the rest of the receiving corps that can be better exploited without Moss on the field. Does Hernandez move out wide? Will the Patriots play with both Welker and Edelman? The Patriots have a bye week, so it seems safe to assume that their offense could have several new “looks” when they next take the field.

#4- Everyone is talking about Tate as the guy who steps in, but I think it could actually be Gronkowski who sees more action. I may be wrong, but it seems as if he has only seen action in goal line and short yardage situations. Gronk can block and catch, does this mean less Crumpler? Algee is pretty much a roving blocker, without Moss, can the Patriots afford to have a non-catching entity out there?

#5- There is more to this story than meets the eye. Now it is coming out that Moss had an altercation with QB Coach Bill O’Brien, I am sure there has to be more than that. Of course, BB runs a tight ship and it will take a while for the real story to come out. I refuse to believe that this is a knee-jerk reaction to a conflict with a coach. There has to be more.

#6- The Patriots trade Moroney, and the next week, Faulk gets injured. What are the odds a WR goes down in the next game? I say about 75%.

#7- The Patriots need help on defense, maybe with all those draft picks they can make a trade for some defensive help. I think that would be a good idea. Teams like Buffalo, Detroit, and Carolina are pretty much toast. I am sure there is a player on one of those teams that could help the Pats. I don’t see the Bills doing business in the division, but a team like the Panthers may be prime to get a pick back.

#8- All this talk that the Patriots want to go back to 01-04 style of play is nonsense, back then the defense was a strength. Right now, this defense is questionable. I believe that they can improve, but it’s going to take time. Patriots schedule is brutal, these guys are going to need to improve on the fly. The offense needs to be able to more than carry their load. Is it possible that the Patriots don’t want to have a lot of big plays because they need their offense on the field as long as possible? So, if they aren’t going to use Randy, might as well dump him? This at least seems logical.

#9- The Patriots play the Vikings on Halloween. I hope Randy gets the runs and misses the game.

#10- Randy Moss may have dogged it on plays, his hands may not be as good as they once were… but the guy is still a total threat. Belichick has proven time and time again that he knows what he is doing. Of course, lately, he has had more misses than hits. This move is really going to test the fans faith. Win and people won’t care at all. Loose, and loose because the offense isn’t effective, and I think this will be the biggest strike against Belichick in his Patriots tenure.

Boardwalk Empire, and all of the parallels to the Sopranos, go me thinking about the Sopranos. So here are my 10 favorite episodes of the original must-see HBO show.

I did my best to narrow the list down to 10, but I couldn’t omit two extra episodes from the conversation. So this is really a top 12, but for search-able reasons (you know, people dont search top 12, 10 seems to be the number), I have 10, and 2 runners up. Also, this is just my opinion, if you are a Sopranos buff, you may have a completely different list. However, this is my list.

Runner up #2- Commendatori Season 2, Episode 4 (#17)

Why I love it- This is the episode where Tony goes to Naples to meet with the local mafia about importing stolen cars. There is some great interaction with Paule Walnuts and the local mafioso who view him as a buffoon (they laugh at him when he tries to order some pasta with “gravy”). Clearly the New Jersey mobsters are fish out of water in the old country. While the guys are in Italy, Carmela and the ladies are doing their thing, and at a lunch, Angie Bonpensiero lets the ladies in on the secret that she wishes her husband (Big Pussy) had never returned. She tells them that her heart sank when she heard Pussy come come in the door for the first time. The wives of the gangsters are not ignorant to their husbands antics, but I am pretty sure this is the first time that one of them talks about it openly. What makes this episode great for me is the use of music. Two times during the episode when you are seeing Carmela, you here “Con te partiro” in the background. It is such a beautiful song, but of course it is Italian. The English translation is “time to say goodbye”, very apropo. In the future, Carmela will toil with why she stays with Tony in spite of his philandering. At the very end of the episode, when Tony comes home, Carmela hears him enter and the song plays for the third time in the episode as it fades to credits. Of course the insinuation is that she feels the same way as Angie did when Pussy came home. Of course, it takes a while for Carmela to say goodbye, but this is the start, and a really effective use of music as an enhancer.

Runner up #1- The Strong Silent Type Season 4, Episode 10 (#49)

Why I love it- For me, this episode comes down to one scene, the intervention for Christopher. Maybe one of the best scenes in the shows history. Silvia and Paulie, not know for being gentle are both abrupt and short with Christopher. It comes out that Christopher accidentally killed Aidriana’s dog, Tony (still emotional after the death of Pie-O-My), loose it. When Christopher calls his mother a whore, Sil and Paulie can take it no more and beat the crap out of him. It Sopranos comedy at its best.

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