And the stragglers

While the trading deadline is 3 p.m., the league has to approve all trades. Final approval sometimes takes an hour or so after the deadline. So, some trades trickle through between 3 and 4. Among those trades…

Scott Parker back to Colorado from San Jose for something to be named. Parker’s a fighter, and he wasn’t fitting in with the Sharks anymore. He’ll find a home in Colorado and he’ll be a good leader as that team moves forward.

The Boston Bruins sent Brad Boyes to St. Louis for Dennis Wideman. Couple of third-line guys who may or may not flourish with new surroundings.

Mattias Norstrom is on his way to Dallas. The Stars made a good move to upgrade their defense, adding the L.A. Kings’ captain. Norstrom is a no-nonsense, stay-at-home, defense-first guy, who instantly makes the Stars defense corps better.

Ryan Smyth, in probably the most surprising move of the day, has been traded to the New York Islanders. Just a day ago, I was telling some friends that these Islanders are a sneaky bunch, and they aren’t getting much ink. They’ve quietly moved into a position to make the playoffs, and they made serious upgrades this week with Smyth today and Richard Zednik yesterday. The Islanders quickly made themselves serious contenders on paper in the last two days. They have at least as much offensive punch as anyone else in the East now (save for the Penguins), and they play great team defense. The Islanders are officially contenders now. For their part, the Oilers got a first-round pick, and two prospects Robert Nilson and Ryan O’Marra -- both former first-round picks.

That looks like the end of trade deadline day. It’s easy to guess about winners and losers right now, but we’ll have to wait until the middle of June to find out for sure. And even then, with prospects like Nilson and O’Marra, Jiri Novotny, Brendan Bell, Lasse Kukkonen, Josh Gorges, Braydon Coburn, Scottie Upshall and Ryan Parent on the move, we may not know all the winners and losers for many years.