By the time the Phoenix Coyotes and Columbus Blue Jackets pulled the trigger on a deal that sent center Antoine Vermette to Phoenix in return for a 2012 second-round pick, a conditional 2013 fifth-round pick and goalie Curtis McElhinney, Phoenix GM Don Maloney estimates that he'd watched every single one of Vermette's shifts with the Blue Jackets from this season. Every single one.
He watched the past 10 Coyotes games and then had the video broken down of every shift Vermette took since the puck dropped in early October. He knows exactly what he's getting.
"In watching the shifts you can see what he's doing, what he's not doing," Maloney said by phone before catching a flight to Calgary. "I think we have this player pegged."
That's what has Maloney so excited about this deal. And relieved.
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- Senior NHL writer for ESPN The Magazine
- Wrote for Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- Wrote for The Sporting News
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Craig Custance
Craig Custance joined ESPN in September 2011 as an NHL reporter for ESPN the Magazine, ESPN Insider and ESPN.com. A graduate of Michigan State University, he lived for nearly a decade in Georgia working for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution where he spent time covering the late Atlanta Thrashers. He was the only Thrashers beat writer to get the team to the playoffs.
From 2008-11 he was the national hockey writer for the Sporting News, writing regularly in print and online. A member of the PHWA, he's a proud voter for the major NHL awards and can occasionally defend his selections.
Like hockey, he left Atlanta to return north where he currently lives in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, with his wife Cassie and their three kids.
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