Tallon hijacks NHL newswires as Florida Panthers own 2011 Trade Deadline

It was a snoozer of a day for just about everyone but the Cats' front office as four bodies - and bundle of contract dollars - were shipped out of Sunrise in exchange for, well, let's call them "pieces" for now. More in-depth stuff coming up later today, but to quickly summarize the afternoon's welcome local implementation of the nuclear option:

• F Radek Dvorak, 5th-round pick to ATL for RW Niclas Bergfors and LW Patrick Rissmiller
• D Dennis Wideman to WAS for C Jake Hauswirth, 3rd-round pick
• D Bryan Allen to CAR for LW Sergei Samsonov
• F Chris Higgins to VAN for D Evan Oberg, 3rd-round pick

Perhaps most intriguing is who was not dealt: Stephen Weiss, David Booth, Marty Reasoner, and Tomas Vokoun all remain with the club or at least until mere minutes before the Entry Draft opens.

Again, we'll have some op/ed in a bit, but here's coach Peter DeBoer's Florida Panthers roster heading into Tuesday's game in Carolina:

Forwards: Bergfors, Steve Bernier, Booth, Darcy Hordichuk, Hugh Jessiman, Kenndal McArdle, Reasoner, Michal Repik, Samsonov, Mike Santorelli, Bill Thomas, Scott Timmins, Weiss.

Defense: Joe Callahan, Jason Garrison, Dmitry Kulikov, Alexander Sulzer, Mike Weaver

Yikes. Obviously there will be a recall or four over the next few hours, but what you see above is called a "rebuild". Not a Mike Keenan or Jacques Martin-style Band-Aid-and-Stumpel "rebuild".

We were promised the real deal, and it has arrived. Buckle up.