God Dater, please be wrong for once.

Not happy about this.

It’s all over Twitter from various blogs, but there’s no word from either team. Yet.

Cohen is bigger than Hunwick. He was a higher draft pick. He’s a right hand shot, and Hunwick is a lefty, and the Avs always seem to be short with right hand shots. Hunwick is 4 years older than Cohen.

bruins.nhl.com has him listed as a member of the Avs now. Here is the blurb from Hockey’s Future:

Talent Analysis

First and foremost, Hunwick is a responsible player in his own zone. He is strong in his defensive positioning and decisive in reading his coverage as evidenced by his team leading +14 rating. He is an asset carrying the puck up the ice and is an integral part of Michigan’s transition game. On the power play, Hunwick moves the puck quickly and makes hard, sharp passes. His shot from the point is average at best.

"Matty’s been a consistent player for us since he started here," said Michigan assistant coach Billy Powers. "He’s a player that teammates look up to, and he’s one of those players where his actions speak louder than words. He’s not a real rah-rah guy, but his leadership shows on the ice. Sometimes he lets mistakes get to him a little too much -That competitive nature can get the best of him, and he needs to work on bouncing back mentally"

Future

It will be Hunwick’s excellent skating and transition game that help to overcome any questions about his physical limitations.

http://avalanche.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=544852&navid=DL|COL|home

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I really don’t like this, not at all.

The stats don’t make much sense to me. But looking at the analysis in Hockey’s Future, it does help me understand it a little. He seems more defensive with a little offensive upside. I wonder if he’s got a good slap-shot. I like that he’s really competitive though, that fits nicely into our team. Also, being older with more experience may help us more now than Cohen would have.

"Matt is another young defenseman who can contribute to our lineup right away,"

If one were being generous with their interpretation of that, it could be read to mean “Kyle Quincey (and or Ryan Wilson) sucks and we needed to get a replacement for him NOW.”

If dater’s analysis is right—“great wheels and more offensive upside than numbers show”—that sounds strikingly like a Thing One that’s not bad at defense. We’ve already got one, you see?

Sigh, reserving judgment. I wasnt a fan of the Snatch deal either but I like ROB now.

Wonder how Shattenkirk feels about his buddy getting traded.

I find it kind of odd that they keep trading for defensemen. Are they shoring up the numbers for when several are traded in a big trade later on?…… yeah I doubt it.

I’m not so sure… but this is a bit interesting…. Seems like they’ve been pretty good about choosing guys lately.

I was looking forward to Cohen after what he showed in his few games.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m sitting in a library, I would have let out a loud ‘fuck!’ when reading the headline.

I think this is a mistake. The Avs were fine waiting out the summer and being patient while building internally. Why are they trying to beef up the blue line all of a sudden?

What the hell was that. This makes no sense what so ever. I propose a hostile take over of this team because whoever the hell is actually running it is a retard.

1. Holøs is not making the lineup this season. Period. Ever. Which I hate
2. Bigger Logjam at D. Say Hunwick plays, who sits? And when Footer comes back in the next few weeks?
3. Still no depth at the wings? please, if we were going to be helping the Bruins clear cap then lets at least grab Blake Wheeler for christ sake
4. I liked Cohen. And the reasoning here is beyond me. If Wilson is staying in the lineup for his size (which he doesnt use) then why are we trading away a big guy like Cohen (who, though he was overeager, was clearly willing to use his body in the game) I was really looking forward to Cohen in a few years and its going to hurt to see him play so well for the Bruins, we must still be paying them for Ray Bourque.
5. Our defense just got smaller, so everyone hoping for a Wilson demotion? I dont see it happening now, I would say its impossible to take Shattenkirk off the ice, but I also thought it impossible for us to trade for another average defender so who knows, sacco seems to be favoring experience right now and if shatty hits a slump he could be back to LEM.

I hate thisI hope to god this is a sign of things to come, a d-man on his way out in another deal FOR A GODDAMN FORWARD.

i don’t get it. we have too many NHL defensemen. Cohen was not my favorite prospect, but what in the world is the point of acquiring ANOTHER smallish puck mover with defensive issue in exchange for a guy still developing? shouldn’t we be getting a guy that, you know, can play defense? why get a defenseman at all?!

my finely-tuned-by-McDaniels bad trade warning sirens are going off.

NHL D’s are now Hannan, Liles, Foote, Quincey, Wilson, Shattenkirk, ROB, Hunwick, Cumiskey. Something has to be coming…

He has a few seasons under his belt and has some good playoff experience and, most importantly, he played at Michigan.

I don’t get this at all

I just saw this on Facebook and I’m… I don’t know. Somebody who knows more about this Bruins guy needs to tell me how I should be feeling about this, haha.

at least we know the motivation from the Bruins side. They needed to clear about a million in cap space (Hunwick makes $1.45 million)
http://www.stanleycupofchowder.com/2010/11/29/1837438/bruins-face-a-significant-cap-decision

Oh dear, they traded one of the 2000 carbon-copy exact same cookie cutter D-men they had lying around. Just because more people liked Cohen than another guy doesn’t mean the trade is a failure. At the very least, Hunwick is a lot more experienced than our plethora of rookies, having played 70+ games for the Bruins last season. I fail to see how losing one of our many, many similar defensemen for someone with a different game with a ton more NHL experience is a bad thing.

I assume a larger trade is coming up anyway, as pointed out earlier.

Before rushing to judgement, I need to have dinner and contemplate this. But I really really liked the idea of the chemistry growing between Shatty and Cohen. Thats all.

They’ve got us this far.

Who do you guys think this new addition will be paired with? And now who sits?

I ’m thinking this was in the works for a bit and why we saw Holøs sent back down….

So… there goes our only hope for a Weber-esque shot from the point. I don’t know any of the prospects that had Cohen’s potential out there.

Kind of an odd deal really. Elliott and Barrie were there and the Avs need winger assets at the moment. Just really odd deal for a guy with a ton of potential that seemed to be well liked by his teammates.

Sad to see him go.

Just had to say that some of the comments on Facebook are cracking me up:

“Wtf,(:
Hehe, Uhm?? Like really Bad trade cohean was amazin’!!
Get better stewie.”

I liked Cohen, he was one of very few Avs who wasn’t afraid to get in people’s faces and throw his body around. His own-zone play was a bit spotty, but that’s why you season him in the minors. Hunwick may be a legit upgrade over him, but the niche he fills is one that we’ve already packed to overflowing. It’s a bit baffling why we didn’t take a winger instead.

the Avs collect puck moving Ds…
maybe to trade later at the deadline for mass overpayments

Elliot and Barrie are both going to be in at least the AHL next year. We all knew at least one of these prospects had to go. (We may have thought it would have been for a forward but eeeeehhhhhhh what are ya gonna do?)

pending play by Hunwick. My initial reaction of “OH F*&K” was enough to get my boss in my office asking what was wrong.

I hope that this is a precursor to other trades that will clear the D logjam and help out up front better.

We’ll see. In the Schrute we trust!

Not sure it’s been mentioned yet, but Hunwick can play forward, and has done so well in Boston in the past. When he’s on, he produced at almost a ppg. But he seemed inconsistent and bounced back and forth a lot between the NHL-AHL too.

The “for a forward” argument isn’t really necessary since this wasn’t more than just a basic player for player swap. Had they traded two guys for a single D-man, it would be more concerning. Otherwise this is just a swap of two somewhat similar players, with Boston gaining some cap space and a somewhat hotter prospect in the deal and Colorado gaining a player with more experience and more versatility than the man he was traded for.

I feel like I’m watching a soap opera or something!!! This is exactly how I would probably feel if I found out the hunky man-meat was cheating on his coma-wife with the hot blonde next door!! This can’t be the only thing going on here (trade-wise, I mean). WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?!?!?!?

Why did this trade need to be done now? if it’s cause of Boston’s cap problems, then I hope they got a draft pick too.

I liked Cohen, but I guess I’ll give Management a pass on this one. They haven’t done too bad a job so far. All pending how hunwick plays/ further moves of course.

I’m not too worried, I actually think it could be a good move to have a guy who can play either way, with all the injuries the Avs face every game running a short bench is probably easier with a guy like that

And by a bit happy, I mean effing thrilled.

""When the Colorado GM called me and he’s like ‘We just traded you,’ I was praying," said Cohen via cell phone. “I had a few cities in mind…and when he said Boston, I was like, ’Wow, this couldn’t be any better!…I’m sort of at a loss for words right now, because there’s not a better place that it’s going to happen — I loved BU,” said Cohen of returning to Hub of Hockey. "I never realized how much I loved it before I left, and I miss Boston in the worst way.

So, there is that. I’m happy for him; if he’s going to get a chance to shine and he likes the trade, then good for him. I’m bummed, but what can you do?

Our best goal scorer goes down, so we trade a D prospect for another D man. Perhaps Cohen requested to go back to Boston?

You know, the more I think about this, the more I get frustrated. We’ve now traded away two prospects for middling defensemen, and we wouldn’t have had to do either if we had just taken care of business in FA this summer.

It’s taken a whopping 1/4 of the season for us to shitcan building from within. I mean, really. We had all bought in to the build from within because of the success, and now they make a seemingly unnecessary trade that brings in a commodity we already have according to “The Plan.”

Per AD’s latest blog:

Hunwick lost his spleen in 2009, after a hit in Game 1 of the playoffs with Montreal. He played in all 13 playoff games with the Bruins in 2010, after dressing in a career-high 76 regular-season games.

AD seems to like the move. Also gives an update on Stewie’s injury.

it was OK, Sherman was obviously desperate
NOW on the other hand, makes absolutely no sense, seeing as someone who is deserving of a spot is going to have to sit so Hunwick can play
Plus that, Cohen actually showed a great deal of physical hate for the other team, as the Avs success increased in the game, his pissed-offness reflected that…which i enjoyed watching
So, it seems like a very, very short minded trade to throw another guy in what we know as the Avalanche ‘clusterfuck’ D corps

Wait and see. Geez. You guys sound like we just traded Duchene for Richard Park.

I’m not so upset at the trade itself, done in a vaccuum it might be good, but considering what’s going on with the team I don’t get it.

Really! What difference does it make?

Despite popular opinion the management of this team knows the score and they don’t make dumb moves, or moves just for the sake of making moves. There is a larger plan here and/or we are at least getting an NHLer for an AHLer.

With the recent spate of Kyle (and Wilson) hate I would think that some here would be excited about the potential of this move….

This is why you don’t fall in love with prospects, especially in hockey.

Otherwise this just feels like making a move for the sake of making a move. I’m confused.

Last year Hunwick was on a lot of MHH poster’s trade deadline/FA wish list. In fact, a lot of “experts” had him on a lot of teams’ wish list. There is a possibility that he was a player the Avs Front Office had their eyes on and took a chance when it came. Lacroix has a very good rapport with Boston and this may have worked for both sides.

We are and have in no way gutted our prospects nor have we scrapped the building from within. This is not an instant fix, but the Avs had the chance to get Hunwick for only a prospect and took it.

Hunwick was hated by a lot of fans in Boston but that’s because we all watch hockey drunk and key in on certain players being “awful” so he might be just fine.