Horton Wears A ‘B’

It has now been confirmed that RW Nathan Horton, along with F Gregory Campbell, have been traded from the Florida Pathers to the Boston Bruins for D Dennis Wideman, the 15th overall pick in Friday’s Draft and a 3rd round pick in 2011.

Wait.

Did I just type that the Bruins traded Dennis Wideman? And got some serious, genuine NHL talent in return that will fill their most glaring need, size and scoring at right wing, in return?

Someone pinch me. Someone not named Chippy, that is. She uses vice grips.

Seriously, this looks like one hell of a deal for the Boston Bruins at first glance. Horton’s contract status might be the only thing that could take the shine off of it and I’ll do my homework on that as soon as I have some free time but, for now, a confident thumbs up on Chiarelli’s first big move of the 2010 off-season. And that’s just the beginning, likely.

The juicy bonus to all of this, of course, is the Bruins now have Colin Campbell’s son on the team, too.

Tell me we can’t have a little fun with that, eh?

UPDATE: Apparently, Horton has three years left on his current deal at an even $4 million per. After that, he would be an unrestricted free agent. You might as well call the Bruins the $4 Million Dollar Club because that money is nearly identical to the pay of a number of other top forwards. Marc Savard, Milan Lucic, David Krejci, Michael Ryder and now Horton all fall right around that same exact number. Marco Sturm at $3.5 and Patrice Bergeron at $4.75 are the exceptions amongst that group but even those numbers are pretty close.

Elsewhere, in a busy day around the NHL:

The NHL announces the Class of 2010 Hall of Fame inductees and, for the first time, the list includes women. Cammi Granato and Angela James will both be inducted along with Dino Ciccarelli, as players. Unfortunately, the campaign to get Pat Burns in failed to produce results, which is a crying shame, really.

Pat Quinn moves down to an advisory role with the Oilers as the coaching reins get handed over to Tom Renney, his assistant. Taylor Hall, meet your new coach.

Some re-signings. Tomas Plekanec gets 6 years, $30 million out of the Canadiens. Mat Cooke, dirty fucker, gets 3 more years in Pittsburgh.

Scott Niedermayer retires.

Sharks say goodbye to Evgeni Nabokov.

Hello Tim Thomas?