This is stupid.

So stupid, in fact, I compare it to the old joke about a little boy who goes to school with a five dollar bill. He brags to his friend he has one five dollar bill and is offered three one dollar bills in trade. "Three is more than one!" the friend tells the first boy.

And the kid makes the trade. And throughout the day he keeps trading down like that for more of less.

In the frustrating days of the late 1990's and early Double-Oh's - you saw just this happen in trades. Something great traded for more of less. For a team rebuilding, it sort of made sense. While there were hits, there were more misses and that was why fans were not endeared to Rick Dudley...

But when the dominoes started to fall on the more-of-less in this situation, we started with a top pair defensiveman (Dan Boyle), traded him for a young up and coming D-man and a first rounder (Matt Carle), then traded Carle for Eminger and trash-considerations in Steve Downie...

And now we get Noah Welch and a 3rd rounder for Eminger...? You've traded Dan Boyle for Welch and a 3rd rounder (after dealing away the draft pick already for a sub-par D-man)??

This is insane.

And I apologize profusely to Noah Welch. I apologize for coming down on him indirectly like this when I have never seen him play and don't know his future. I apologize to him because this post comes off like a judgment about his abilities when in fact, it's a judgment of the braintrust (I use that term as loosely as possible) of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

And then again, he just became a piece of one of the most jumbled puzzles of transactions in NHL history. That's not his fault. That's the fault of the upper brass who don't seem to want the fans to understand what they are doing. I'm not talking cliché "happy to have him on the roster and he has great abilities" talk. I'm talking big-picture direction of the franchise talk... What's-the-plan-going-forward talk. Talk that's been missing while each and every roster move causes more anxiety, and every lingering rumor seems akin to a bad dream.