Dany Heatley Finally Jumps The Shark

After months of rumours hanging around the nation's capital like a lingering fart (actually, that's just how Ottawa smells), Dany Heatley is finally going to California.

The Senators traded the disgruntled winger to San Jose for Milan Michalek, the corpse of Jonathan Cheechoo and a second-rounder.

Is it a good deal for Ottawa? Well, not as good as the rumoured three-way deal involving the Kings that would have netted Alexander Frolov and Jarret Stoll, but this is probably the best haul they could have received with only one team in the picture.

Michalek will likely skate on a wing with Jason Spezza, which means his production shouldn't change much. As for Cheechoo, maybe a change of scenery will help; he only managed 35 goals the past two seasons and played his way off the top line with Joe Thornton.

Speaking of Thornton, he and Heatley should be absolutely deadly this season. Thornton has made marginal NHL talent look like top snipers, so Lord knows what he'll do with a legitimate 50-goal scorer on his wing.

Captain Patrick Marleau also stays in town after being a big part of the Heatley trade rumours, so this is a win-win situation for the Sharks, who will once again enter the season as favourites in the West and then find some way to fuck it all up despite having a ton of talent.

For the Sens, it marks the end of an era. When the team had trouble scoring (ie. pretty much all of last season) there was always the fallback option: reuniting the "Pizza Line" of Heatley, Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson.

Now with Heatley gone, Alfredsson turning 37 and Spezza becoming more and more of a whiny douchebag, Ottawa are in serious danger of missing the playoffs for a second straight season after 11 straight post-season appearances.

In other news, hope you like the new look. Nothing says "legitimate sports blog" like canary yellow text and vintage baseball card jpegs.