Logan excerpt: on Weight deal, Botta/goalie topic

Newsday's Greg Logan chatted with readers this afternoon, and these two points drew my interest:

On ex-Isles PR man Chris Botta's latest criticism of the goalie/DiPietro/info handling:

I love Chris, but he took it a little farther than I did. Basically, my reporting showed the decision wasn't made in Edmonton until after the morning skate. All that means is that it depended on how DiPietro is responding to treatment and how he is recovering from playing. It's a cautious approach, and rightfully so. DiPietro said to me that it won't be this way all season, but it's appropriate now in the initial stages of coming back from knee surgery and the groin strain he suffered in his first game back. Gordon also said that how many games DiPietro plays this season is not as important as it is to make sure he's healthy when he plays. That's the tack they're following. If DiPietro played before he was ready and reinjured himself, everyone would be howling about that.

That's closer to my read of it at the time. I think Mr. Botta made an understandable assumption -- but one that's tough/risky to make based on the limited information (essentially, quote sampling from an article that was itself edited for space) from conversations happening two time zones away. "Keystone Cops" was a bit much.

On the Weight-to-Columbus rumors:

Unless you're trading a top-end guy, you're unlikely to get a top prospect in return. I've heard of a good-sized young defenseman in Columbus who might be available as part of a Weight trade. His name escapes me at the moment, but that's the one solid thing I've heard at this point.

"Good-sized young defenseman," ... hmmm, intriguing.

All in all, it was a good chat -- very low on lunatic quotient. Other topics included play and philosophy since the Witt comments, and the potential need for a defensive assistant coach. Definitely worth checking out.