Fuck You Marty.

Twenty days or less.

That’s how long your Dallas Stars Marty Turco replica jersey remains relevant.

With Wednesday night’s announcement that Stars General Manager Joe Nieuwendyk had traded for Atlanta Thrashers goaltender Kari Lehtonen, the countdown officially started on Turco’s exit from Dallas. As of now, the club is carrying three goalies whose current contracts, on paper, total a whopping $9.4 million. Granted, they’ll only be on the hook for a prorated portion of Lehtonen’s contract this year, but at the end of the season, if they are unable to trade Turco before the March 3 deadline, they will potentially find themselves without any NHL-quality net minder; Lehtonen will be a restricted free agent, and current backup Alex Auld and Turco will both be unrestricted free agents – not that the Stars have shown any interest in keeping Turco anyway.

For a team that has shown itself to be somewhat mentally fragile, especially on the road, introducing another starting goalie in to the dressing room, without Turco being part of the trade that got him here, creates an unstable dynamic and possible locker room tension. The players have long-term relationships with Turco, so how can they show support for the new guy with Marty sitting across the room? How can any of the three goalies focus properly with their futures all being so tenuous? Nieuwendyk has until the beginning of Olympic break, February 12 to make a trade, or he must then wait until the roster freeze period (Feb. 12-28) expires, after which he has three days until the trade deadline to make a deal to help clarify and stabilize the team if they have any designs on making the playoffs this season.

Another option would be for the Stars simply to sit Turco, and let him become a UFA at the end of the year and walk, thereby totally clearing his salary slot ($5.7 million) off their books for next year by not assuming any additional salary that would come back in a trade involving Marty. A final alternative would be to actually waive Turco and hope another team claims his entire remaining prorated salary cap hit, thereby freeing the Stars of him. If no club does, the Stars can send him to the minors, and then hope another team claims him on the reentry draft, where both the Stars and the team that claimed him would be on the hook for 50% of his remaining contract. That would be a brutal way to treat someone who has been such a cornerstone for this franchise for so long, but with owner Tom Hicks trying to slash costs at every corner, nothing

would surprise me.

Initial reactions to the trade by Stars’ head coach Marc Crawford were predictable:

"Obviously I think [Atlanta] feels pretty good about Kari Lehtonen. He's come back and I've heard that he's played well at the American League level, so we'll see what happens from there on our side."

Lehtonen’s “comeback” is from a pair of back surgeries – honestly, does a 26-year-old goalie undergoing multiple back surgeries sound like a good thing? – that have prohibited him from playing an actual NHL game since April, 2009. He has recently played four AHL games, posting a 1-1-2 record, 2.87 goals against and a .899 save percentage.

Ironically, the player the Stars traded, along with a fourth-round draft pick in 2010, 21-year-old defenseman Ivan Vishnevskiy has played commendably in the AHL this year; he was a member of the this season’s AHL’s PlanetUSA All-Star squad and is thought of as a highly-skilled young blueliner with developing offensive talent. Vishnevskiy, the Stars’ first-round pick in 2006, had only played five games in Dallas this year, but that’s five more NHL games than Lehtonen.

About Lehtonen, Nieuwendyk said, “He was picked second overall for a reason. When healthy, he is a world-class goaltender. He is 26, and is entering the prime of his career.”

The bottom line on the whole deal has to be that the Stars are banking on the fact that they are getting a player, Lehtonen, that they feel they can re-sign for less than his current $3 million price tag going forward due to his injury history, then cross their fingers that he returns to his form of 2006 through 2008.

As ESPN.com’s Scott Burnside wrote, “unless he makes an about-face in terms of his conditioning and ability to mentally compete, he will end up simply eating cap space in Dallas.”

Oof.

Update:

Upon further research, Kari Lehtonen:

-suffered a severe groin injury in 2005-06 that sidelined him 35 games

-suffered another groin injury in 2007-08 and missed 16 games

-loves McDonald's cheesburgers and was nicknamed Hamburglar

-has had a bunch of cool masks, including one with the Hamburglar on it, as well as ones with Uma Thurman from Kill Bill, L'il John, and Optimus Prime