What to do with Nick Boynton & Evgeny Artyukhin?

#4 Nick Boynton 42GP 1G 6A 7P +/- 1 59PIM 39Shots 16:45 TOI/G

Cap Hit: $1,500,000 (UFA) -- End: 2010
Age: 31

#24 Evgeny Artyukhin 37GP 4G 5A 9P +/- 0 41PIM 21Shots 9:04 TOI/G

Cap Hit: $950,000 (UFA) -- End: 2010
Age: 26


Above there is some general information about Boynton & Artyukhin. I suggest you head to a great NHL stats site called Behind The Net for more detailed stats. I leave the more detailed stats for you guys to check out, and i'm just going voice my general opinion about the players in question -- I'll start with Nick Boynton.

Boynton first was put on to waivers by the Ducks in February 1st and no team took the chance to grab Boynton then. Day later, he was put to Re-Entry Waivers, but was cleared again. Then he was assigned to Manitoba Moose, part of the American Hockey League. Personally i'm kind of wondering, how no one wanted to take their chances with Boynton. By any means, he isn't a bad defenceman, just not that good fit to Ducks, because they already have players working the same role, that Boynton is capable of handling. That is, of course, #5-6th defenceman. Boynton is a regular defensive defenceman, who isn't maybe particularly tough or good at clearing the crease, but he does have a good active stick, and he also has a pretty solid defensive positioning. On the offensive side of thing, he is quite good at pinching in sometimes, and keeping the puck in on the opponent's zone. And he also fights (in this vid Derek Boogard was after the Ducks rookie Dan Sexton and Boynton came in to defend his teammate) and he lays pretty decent hits sometimes. Maybe some team GM would like to grab Boynton by dumping another contract at a trade? Pure speculation on my part. But i can say for certain, that Boynton is far from being useless bum, and i think he could add some defensive depth to a team with injuries, or maybe upgrade some team's defensive depth.

Artyukhin is another story. He's been in and out of head coach Randy Carlyle's doghouse all season long, and currently, he's in. Best way to describe Artyukhin would be, that he has pretty decent skillset, but for "some reason" he hasn't been able to put it all together yet -- and that "some reason" is that his hockey IQ is just terrible. It's clear as a day when you watch Artyukhin play. It just seems like most of time he's just lost, especially on the defensive zone. He does has, however great wheels for a 6' 4", 255 pound guy. It's actually quite tremendous how fast he can skate when he goes on to full speed, and that is definitely one of Arty's greatest strength's. Other asset on his play would be his physical play, as most of time when he goes into corners, he does come out with puck on his tape. And he looks pretty intimidating when he goes to finish his check's. Artyukhin probably isn't going to be re-signed by the Ducks, so maybe he could be traded to a team, which is short on big, physical forwards. It's a whole another story what he could possibly fetch at the deadline, and i'm not going to get into that right now.

But anyhow, feel free to post any comments about what do you think that the Ducks should do with above mentioned guys.

Go Ducks