Bouchard to the Hawks

Arthur Staple reports after tonight’s Islanders loss to Calgary that Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Peter Regin are off to the Chicago Blackhawks for a fourth-round draft pick. (Bouchard, at least for the moment, goes to Rockford.)

With the season looking grim on the Island, the likes of this figured (and figure) to be coming, and as Chris Botta notes, for starters, that’s the payoff for the Islanders’ two NHL free-agent signings. Regin hadn’t made much of an impact; Bouchard had done the same up top, but obviously he’d been valuable here — look, if he didn’t produce here, something was wrong — with 17 points in 20 games. Bridgeport is again down to zero AHL veterans.

The Big Club plays Saturday, then goes away for a couple of weeks. The Islanders now have 12 forwards and are reportedly hoping to trade Thomas Vanek before the Olympic-break trade deadline, Friday at 3 p.m. Could Bridgeport’s Saturday-night roster be affected further by then? Absolutely. (Post-break? Think we’re moving toward “obviously.”) At the moment, presuming Ryan Strome and Johan Sundstrom are available, they have 12 forwards and six defensemen, counting Scooter Vaughan (whose PTO expires, you may recall, Sunday) on defense. Subject to change. In both directions.

The Islanders resume play Feb. 27 after the Olympics. And after that, it’s less than a week to the real and final trade deadline on March 5.

Edit: So if I count correctly, 43 NHL contracts, two that don’t count in the WHL, one in Sweden, two in the Coast, 15 in the AHL, 23 in the NHL. Not that they’ll be testing the upper limits soon.

To clear the links while we’re here, Springfield (well, Columbus) acquires Paul Thompson for Spencer Machacek in a deal with the Penguins. Brad Larsen mentioned over the weekend that he had eight vets on Saturday; that at least eases that logjam a bit.

Edit: And Doug Bonjour rounds out the Connecticut men’s Olympians with Kevin Shattenkirk.

Michael Fornabaio