Here's stuff I'm sick of seeing:

From Tim Sassone's blog at the Daily Herald:

Havlat and Khabibulin are going to be unrestricted free agents, and therein lies the dilemma for GM Dale Tallon. Keep them, and lose them for nothing in July, or try to get something for them in a trade and risk disrupting a great season?

Now, I like Sassone, but I think it's time for everyone to get over the concept of Khabi and Havlat walking away and leaving the Hawks with "nothing".  What does that mean?  The Hawks signed Khabibulin as a free agent and traded three nobodies (Tom Preissing, Josh Hennessy, Michal Barinka) for Havlat.  These two guys are earning the money they're being paid as key cogs on a playoff bound team.  Havlat's been the team's best forward for most of the season during his contract drive, and Khabi's proving to be a hell of platoon player.   And lest we forget, the NHL now labors under a salary cap.  Which means that players must be swapped for players of nearly equal value (unless one team is way under the cap).  So, who should the Hawks trade their best forward or their best goaltender for?  Here are some of the likely candidates*: Jason Spezza, Vincent Lecavalier, Wade Redden, Eddie Jovanovski, Patrick Marleau, Paul Kariya, Bryan McCabe, Ryan Smyth, Patrick Elias.

Hmm.  Most of those guys are older with terrible contracts, or are already key pieces on a contending team.  Spezza or Lecavalier would be nice, but you know what I'd rather have than most of these other guys at the end of the year?  A playoff run and $12.75 million to spend on extensions and new players!  You see what I did there?  The Hawks would have salary cap room!  And in today's NHL, that is definitely something.

Meanwhile, our old pal Barry Rozner is up to some shenanigans of his own:

So get something for Khabibulin and Havlat before the deadline, finish the season hard, and let your youngsters get those playoff minutes that are going to pay off a year or two from now. Let them succeed and fail, grow and suffer, at the most critical time of year.

If you can admit you're not going to win the Stanley Cup this year, then you can surely trade Khabibulin and Havlat and get players and picks in return that will help you down the road, maybe even next year.

Again, the assertion is made that not trading Havlat and or Khabi means that the Hawks will get "nothing".  But then Barry goes on to show his ignorance of the current NHL salary cap conditions.  At no point in his article does he actually suggest a specific team that would be willing to deal these nebulous "players and picks" that will help the Hawks get better.  Presumably, these players are young and on the cheap side, and the picks, of course, carry no salary weight.  Which means there are exactly 5 teams in the NHL that could take on Khabibulin's salary without having to dump much in return: Atlanta, LA, Nashville, the Islanders, Phoenix and Toronto.  With a bit of maneuvering, Tampa, St. Louis, Carolina and Buffalo might be able to pull it off.  But few of these teams has an immediate need for either player right now, and if they wanted them for the future, why wouldn't they just hold onto to their picks and players and try to throw some of that cap room their way in the offseason.

That's what pisses me off about this.  The only way the Hawks are realistically going to be able to move Havlat and Khabibulin is to treat them as bad contracts and take bad contracts in return.  The problem (problem?) is that they don't have bad contracts, they have large contracts that they are living up to, so getting fair value in return is going to be impossible, since most players in similar situations aren't going to be traded.

Anyway, I'm throwing my lot in with the guys over at Fifth Feather.  Barring an unbelievable trade offer, the Hawks should hold on to Havlat and Khabibulin.  Ride them as far as they can take you in the playoffs, and wish them well in 2009-2010.

Then fill up a truck with money and drive it over to Duncan Keith's house.