J-Bo Rumours Heating Up

The Panthers needed a shakeup; anything they could do to try to change the attitude in the locker room. No one wanted to see Belak waived, but it definitely stirred up emotions.


After all, here's a guy that everyone likes. He was brought in to protect his teammates and to fight when needed. The role of an enforcer is an important, but extremely limited role, yet the team's poor performance didn't push an underachieving forward to the waiver wire -- it was the well-liked, underplayed Wade Belak.

And it pissed off a lot of the players.

But just putting a good friend on the market and essentially giving him away as punishment to the rest of the team is likely only one of the moves that Martin has been keying in on the past couple of weeks. Especially if waiving Belak fails to ultimately yield positive results.

So let's get to the stuff that's out there.

790 the Ticket is reporting that Bouwmeester is quite literally about to get moved. Meaning, it could happen today. Before tonight's game, right after tonight's game.. during tonight's game. Who knows. Is there validity to that report? It's definitely possible.

Last week, Jack Birch told the Democrat & Chronicle that the Panthers have been actively exploring their options, and Martin admited to the Miami Herald that he's been talking to other general managers across the league.

And if the Cats don't have a good night tonight..?

I'm thinking that Belak getting waived was only a stop-gap move as Martin sets his sights on a larger deal with the hope that it might fire up the team a bit to carry them through the lull.

With Nathan Horton being moved back to wing, that leaves Stephen Weiss, Brett McLean and Kamil Kreps as the Panthers' top three centers. So the Panthers need to add some help down the middle, and that of course that brings back the fascination that Jacques has always had for Senators' center Antoine Vermette going back to Martin's days as coach of the Ottawa Senators.

The Ottawa Sun seems to agree, adding that Cristoph Schubert has been dangled as trade bait before for the Sens. But beyond that, the Sun claims that Radek Dvorak and Rostislav Olesz are up for grabs on the Panthers' end.

I really like Vermette, and he had a great year last year despite being stuck on the third line behind Jason Spezza and Mike Fisher. But there are a few other teams out there that could have quite a bit to offer the Panthers, as well.

Pittsburgh has an excess of centers with Malkin, Crosby and Staal and they've also got very good young defensive prospects (Letang, Goligoski) that are already playing regularly with injuries to Ryan Whitney and Sergei Gonchar. Jordan Staal has been playing in a similar situation as Antoine Vermette, but Staal only just turned 20 years old. The Flyers have been brought up in Bouwmeester rumours many times before and Jeff Carter's been rumoured, as well.

Still, this is Jacques Martin behind the wheel. He's proven to be extremely unpredictable thus far, so I might have a better chance explaining in perfect detail all aspects of dark matter than I would of guessing what JM's going to do.

Regardless, the writing is on the wall. Changes are coming.