Reunited and it feels so good

From Anwar S. Richardson of the Tampa Tribune:

It did not take Tampa Bay long to realize it could not spell MVP without Vinny Prospal.

Prospal, 33, has agreed to sign a four-year contract worth $14 million, marking the third time he has been acquired by Tampa Bay. His return reunites the popular MVP line of Marty St. Louis, Vinny Lecavalier and Prospal.

Read the entire article here.

Prospal fits perfectly alongside St. Louis and Lecavalier and the team obviously has no worries about chemistry issues. I'd feel more comfortable with this contract if it was a three-year pact, but the cap hit per year is $3.5 million which is not debilitating by any means.

Prospal was never happy in Philadelphia

From Ed Moran of the Philadelphia Daily News:

Paul Holmgren knew right away that Vaclav Prospal was not happy to be returning to Philadelphia.

"Right after we made the trade [at the deadline in February] when I talked to him, he let me know he wasn't very happy. We talked about it and what I told him was, 'You scratch my back I'll scratch yours,' " the Flyers general manager said yesterday.

"I told him that if he played well here it would only improve his status."

Read more about yesterday's Prospal trade here.

Interesting story. Even though Prospal wasn't ever happy in Philly, he sure did play well down the stretch last season to help the Flyers make the playoffs. In fact, he played better than I had anticipated. Good for Holmgren for staying true to his word and handling a tough situation professionally.

Update: Here are Jay Feaster's comments on the trade, courtesy of the Tampa Tribune.

"While we realize some of the risks involved in this strategy we also know that Prospal and Vinny Lecavalier have a very special chemistry together and getting Prospal back in the fold early would enable us to focus our time, attention and resources on other critical areas this summer while leaving our successful top line virtually intact," Feaster said. "At the end of the day, we felt that reacquiring Vinny now and attempting to negotiate a contract with him sooner rather than later was in the best interests of the organization."

Read more about the Prospal trade from the Lightning perspective here.

Prospal traded to Flyers

The Lightning have traded Vinny Prospal to the Philadelphia Flyers for Alex Picard and a second or third round pick.

Analysis: This trade doesn't make too much sense to me. While I undertand they lost out on Forsberg and just lost Simon Gagne and Mike Richards to injury, the team still lacks the necessary goaltending and defense to make a strong run through the playoffs. Unless this move is supplemented by other trades tomorrow, I just don't see the point of giving up Picard and a draft pick for a rental player.

For Illegal Curve, I'm Richard Pollock.