A blurb from the Ottawa Citizen saying Vermette is linked to trade talks among 5 teams, including Florida:
Vermette linked to five teams
Posted: Thursday July 31, 2008 07:49AM ET
If the Senators don't like the decison on Antoine Vermette's arbitration, they can exercise their right to "walk away," but that would allow Vermette, 26, to become an unrestricted free agent. General manager Bryan Murray would be loath to lose such a young, promising player for nothing. Vermette's name has also been mentioned in a number of trade rumours, including swaps with Toronto (for Pavel Kubina), Vancouver (Ryan Kesler or Sami Salo), Chicago, Columbus
and Florida. Most of them make no sense at all, because they don't consider the crucial element: Murray's need to squeeze under the salary cap
Ottawa Citizen
http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/nhl
I'm wondering if any of our excess defensemen would be enough to land Vermette, an RFA. We can assume JM has a man-crush on him. Personally, if he can pull off a deal similar to Vokoun (where he didn't give up any active roster players), then he has to do it. However, we're going to have to shed some salary which means Ottawa would have to take someone like Skrastins or Van Ryn in return, which I doubt anyone wants those guys at this point (maybe at the deadline).
