Rick Tabaracci?

[SlappyMcGee]

Can anybody fill me in on how Tabaracci managed to be the first ever pick by the Blue Jackets, or more about who he was and why he never played for the Jackets? Thanks.

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[reckoning]

Two weeks before the draft, Colorado traded Marc Denis to Columbus. It was rumoured that part of the deal was that Columbus would agree to draft Tabaracci with their first pick. Since teams couldn't lose two goalies (or a defenceman and a goalie) in the expansion draft, this meant that once Tabaracci was selected then Colorado didn't have to worry about losing David Aebischer or Greg de Vries.

As for why Tabaracci never played for Columbus, it's probably because they had already decided that Tugnutt would be their starter with Denis being groomed as their franchise goalie of the future. Tabaracci was a journeyman backup who was pretty much at the end of his career.

 

[SlappyMcGee]

Two weeks before the draft, Colorado traded Marc Denis to Columbus. It was rumoured that part of the deal was that Columbus would agree to draft Tabaracci with their first pick. Since teams couldn't lose two goalies (or a defenceman and a goalie) in the expansion draft, this meant that once Tabaracci was selected then Colorado didn't have to worry about losing David Aebischer or Greg de Vries.

As for why Tabaracci never played for Columbus, it's probably because they had already decided that Tugnutt would be their starter with Denis being groomed as their franchise goalie of the future. Tabaracci was a journeyman backup who was pretty much at the end of his career.

Thanks a lot!

 

[Palinka]

The drafting of Tabaracci was in fact an unofficial side deal as part of the Marc Denis trade. For those who don't remember, Denis was the second-most highly-regarded goalie prospect at the time, trailing only Roberto Luongo. The agreement was basically a second-rounder for Denis and the selection of Tabaracci, which would help Colorado's ability to keep who they wanted.

Tabaracci, to his credit, knew exactly where he stood and was encouraged to explore his options as soon as he could. He ended up signing with Dallas....I think it was 10 days after free agency started.

The weird thing is that Doug MacLean made several deals before the expansion draft, all of which were either very good or very bad. There was the acquisition of two picks and two prospects from Buffalo for an agreement to take Geoff Sanderson (who was still productive) and Dwayne Roloson (who's an ass). There was the Denis/Tabaracci move....both of these were very good. The other two involved some weird setup that saw the loss of an early third-rounder and Turner Stevenson to get Krzyzstof Oliwa and Deron Quint (bad; although I liked Quint, the premium on Oliwa was obscene). And there was taking Jan Caloun and a 9th-rounder in exchange for not taking Evgeny Nabokov, even though Minnesota had extracted a 3rd-rounder, a 7th-rounder, and Andy Sutton from San Jose for an 8th-rounder and "considerations" (which was not taking Nabokov).