Au revoir, Antoine

Antoine Vermette is now a
Phoenix Coyote

Back before the 2010-11 season - what I now affectionately refer to as the Salad Days of my CBJ fanhood - I wrote a blissfully optimistic piece about Antoine Vermette and how he was on the cusp of being a true number one center in the National Hockey League.

It never came to pass.

These days, Vermette was more likely to be seen playing on the third line or pulling a nifty play like this:


Today, Vermette and his big ole' contract were moved to the Phoenix Coyotes for an injured backup-on-a-good-day goalie who becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, a 2012 second rounder and a 2013 4th or 5th rounder.

So that's that.  The garage sale has officially opened.

And now Phoenix fans get to struggle with the proper pronunciation of his name:



Good luck to you, Antoine. And say hi to Ray Whitney, Rusty Klesla, Gilbert Brule, Raffi Torres and Dave King for us while you're out there!