Lightning, Canucks in 4-player trade.
The Vancouver Canucks traded defenseman Lukas Krajicek and minor-league forward Juraj Simek to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday for defenseman Shane O’Brien and right wing Michel Ouellet.

Ouellet, with 54 goals in 187 NHL games with Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, was already in the AHL with Norfolk after clearing waivers last week. Ouellet, with a salary of $1.3 million this season, will be sent to Vancouver’s farm team in Manitoba.

O’Brien fills a defensive spot created when the Canucks lost Nathan McIver to a waiver wire claim from the Anaheim Ducks over the weekend. O’Brien has 37 points and 330 penalty minutes in 158 NHL games.

Krajicek missed most of last season with a shoulder injury that required surgery and slipped down the depth chart with the emergence of Canucks rookie Alexander Edler and the additions of Rob Davison and Lawrence Nycholat.

Simek was the Canucks sixth-round pick in 2006, and has yet to play an NHL game.

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Blue Jackets send down LaCosta, release Matvichuk.

The Columbus Blue Jackets assigned goaltender Dan LaCosta to their American Hockey League affiliate and released defenseman Richard Matvichuk from his tryout contract on Monday.

The 35-year-old Matvichuk played for Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock with the Dallas Stars when they won the Stanley Cup in 1999. With 14 years and almost 800 games in the NHL, he was making $96 a day in training-camp pay to try to make the team after being out of the league a year ago.

LaCosta is considered insurance behind top goalies Pascal Leclaire and Fredrik Norrena. He played well in the Blue Jackets’ 5-4 shootout victory at Toronto in their final preseason game on Sunday night.

The team said its training camp roster is at 30 players, including injured forward Raffi Torres (shoulder) and goaltender Steve Mason (knee).

Posted on October 7th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: NHL hockey news