Who Should Want Dany Heatley? How About the Los Angeles Kings

Word surfaced earlier this week that Ottawa Senators forward, and two-time 50-goal scorer, Dany Heatley requested a trade after four seasons in Canada's capital city.

The news has resulted in a firestorm of debate and commentary across the Canadian media, including a rather scathing article by Don Brennan of the Ottawa Sun that goes as far as to compare Heatley to another former Senators forward, Alexei Yashin. Harsh. And it's unfortunate, for Ottawa's sake anyway, that Mike Milbury is no longer in charge of running an NHL team into the ground. Think of the possibilities!

Brennan continued:

Anyway, the Senators are better off without him. Heatley doesn't have the spine to fight through the checking done by the Penguins and Wings these days. Anyone who has watched him play can see he doesn't have the jam or desire to excel in the Stanley Cup final.

I don't know, Heatley may very well be the malcontent softy that Brennan paints him to be (or it could just be an over-the-top case of sour grapes) but you're going to have an awfully hard time convincing me that a team, like Ottawa, coming off a season where it ranked 23rd in the NHL in goals is going to somehow be magically better without a 50-goal scorer -- its leading goal-scorer this season -- and a guy that can still light the lamp 39 times (tied for ninth most in the NHL) in a "down year." Especially when said team has absolutely no secondary scoring to speak of. And bringing up his trade request in Atlanta, like Brennan did, seems incredibly unfair considering the circumstances surrounding his exit from the Thrashers, something James Gordon of the Hockey Capital blog mentioned on Thursday when writing about how fans in Ottawa will react to Heatley's most recent request.

As for not having the "jam or desire to excel in the Stanley Cup final," Heatley is a career point-per-game player (35 points, 34 games) in his postseason career, including 22 points in 20 games when the Senators went to the final in 2006-07.

As should be expected anytime a big-money, high-profile player hits the trade market, the New York Rangers have to at least get a mention as a possible destination. The Manic Ranger is already pondering whether or not Glen Sather should place a call, while Blue Shirt Banter even puts together its own hypothetical trade offer.

It's all probably a futile effort, though, as Heatley has a no-movement clause and can dictate where he plays (of course, if he wants out of Ottawa that bad he should be willing to play anywhere, right?). The early reports seem to suggest that he's interested in playing in the Western Conference, something the Senators would probably prefer.

Having said that, the perfect team for a potential trade, for my money, has to be the Los Angeles Kings.

The Kings have the perfect balance of available cap space (roughly $43 million committed to 20 players in 2009), young assets that would interest the Senators, and the need/desire to bring in a big-time player this offseason. They've already been mentioned in the same sentence as Ryan Smyth and Scott Gomez (and Vincent Lecavalier) in trade rumors and trade speculation.

Who Should The Kings Target? Player Remaining Contract (Approx.) 08/09 Points Pts/Minute Dany Heatley $35 million/5 years 73 .045 Vincent Lecavalier $85 million/11 years 67 .042 Ryan Smyth $16.5 million/3 years 59 .037 Scott Gomez $33.5 million/5 years 58 .035

As far as Smyth and Gomez are concerned, if you're willing to spend that much money on an offseason acquisition, you might as well just go all out and spend a similar amount on a player that is still in his prime and can still score goals like a $7 million per year player should.

The Kings haven't qualified for the playoffs in six seasons, while adding a legitimate front-line winger to a team that's already loaded with young, up-and-coming talent could be what they need to end that drought.