Nathan Horton

The Curious Case of Nathan Horton

When Boston sent Dennis Wideman and a pair of draft picks to Florida in exchange for Nathan Horton and grinder Gregory Campbell, they were hoping to get a power forward with a well’s worth of untapped potential. The thinking was that the move from a non-traditional hockey market to a contending hockey town would be all that was needed to bring consistency to Horton’s game.

For a while there, it looked like they were right as the 25-year old winger put up 6 goals and 5 assists in his first 10 games with the black and gold. However, in the subsequent 36 games, Horton posted just 6 goals and 10 assists.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Bruins’ Superlatives for 2010-11 Success

By Mike Miccoli, Boston Bruins correspondent

First things first. The Boston Bruins roster, as it stands now, can not be considered as a Stanley Cup contending team. This is perfectly normal. In fact, I can only think of maybe three teams in the entire league that are legitimate threats to win the 2010-11 Stanley Cup; two of which are in the Western Conference. Can the Bruins follow up on their late season success while trying to discard all memories of the four-game collapse against the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference semi-finals? That might be a trickier question to answer.

Mike Ribeiro’s Future, Horton Trade Rumors, and Souray to the Sharks?

Nathan Horton (Joe Loong/WikiCommons)

[Crashing the Crease is The Hockey Writers rundown of news, notes, and analysis from around the NHL]

EASTERN CONFERENCE:

~ As expected, it looks like Ray Whitney won’t be back in Carolina next season. (With the writing on the wall at the trade deadline, it makes me wonder why GM Jim Rutherford didn’t just take what he could get):

“I think it will be difficult with where he will be at, contract-wise,” Rutherford said. “I expect him to go into July (and the free-agent market). It appears that’s the way it’s going to go.”

~ With new bench bosses in Tampa and Columbus, Atlanta hopes to narrow down their remaining options:

The key deadline is July 1st when free agency begins–players want to know who will be in charge of their ice time and their role within the squad. The one advantage of hiring a coach early in the summer is that it gives him more time to review game tapes from the prior year and think about how to plan for the next season.

~ THW’s Dave Poleck dove headfirst into the Nathan Horton trade rumors last week, and ESPN’s Pierre Lebrun is suggesting he may not be the only big name heading out of Florida in the coming days:

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