NHL's Wild Wednesday Played Out Like The Lord of The Rings Trilogy Only Better

It was quiet. Too quiet. Draft weekend came and went without much of anything happening. Where were all the big names getting traded and signed? Brian Elliott to Calgary was the blockbuster? Did we really spend four days talking and arguing about Andrew Shaw and his contract?

We were shipwrecked on a desert island, desperate for something besides a retired player being traded to a team that wanted to get to the salary cap floor.

Then in a flash, a trio of transactions shook the NHL world.

It was a trilogy that could rival The Lord of the Rings, only it took less than 30 minutes, not 11 hours, and instead of Sean Bean dying, it was the spirit of Montreal Canadiens fans that was tragically killed. "One does not simply walk into Montreal and take a franchise defenseman."

Also, the transactions were interesting and didn't put anyone to sleep.

3:34 p.m.—The Edmonton Oilers trade Taylor Hall to the New Jersey Devils for Adam Larsson.

3:54 p.m.—The Montreal Canadiens trade PK Subban to the Nashville Predators for Shea Weber.

3:58 p.m.—Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning agree to an eight-year, $68 million contract.

On a Wednesday afternoon in late June, Stamkos deciding to return to Tampa was the least interesting piece of hockey news.

How? Why? Huh? Let's take a look at each of these mind-blowing deals and figure out what the hell is going on.

Hall was rumored to be in trade talks for a long time. The Oilers have a glut of talented young forwards and gaping holes on defense, but it figured to be center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or right winger Jordan Eberle that would fetch the help needed.

Kevin Shattenkirk, perhaps? The puck-moving, top-pairing defenseman is on the block and the St. Louis Blues could use more offense. Oh, what about Subban? Marc Bergevin swears he's not available but if he is (he is), Hall would be a great way to entice the Canadiens to make that deal.

How would the Oilers fellowship go about dispatching the wing? By dumping him into the fiery hell of the New Jersey Devils for a defenseman that was deemed AHL-worthy two years ago and a healthy scratch at times last season.

Instead of destroying the wing and saving the people of Middle Alberta, they destroyed themselves in a way that made you think the reports were from fake Twitter accounts posing as hockey insiders. Imagine getting to that page in the LOTR book and reading, "And as Frodo cast the ring into the depths of Mordor, Larsson flew past and snatched it out of the sky."

Whether it's Lord of the Rings or a Taylor Hall trade, Adam Larsson's name has no business in either.

Hall is a top-line wing with 30-goal, 80-point potential; Larsson is a second-pairing defenseman with the potential to improve, sure, but he's shown nothing more than occasional flashes during his up-and-down time in New Jersey. The one thing you can say about the Oilers is they traded from a position of strength to fill a position of weakness and they will almost definitely offset the Hall loss by signing Milan Lucic.

Because if you get the opportunity to land Lucic, you have to clear Hall off the books to create the room.

If you thought Hall-Larsson would be the worst trade of the day, Bergevin grabbed a megaphone and exclaimed, "Look over here! Look at me!"

Subban for Weber. It's the type of trade you'd do in a video game. Or a fantasy league, assuming you were in a fantasy league with someone stupid enough to give you Subban for Weber, but even then, the rest of the league would probably veto it.

It can't be overstated what a terrible, one-sided deal this is. Hall for Larsson is a bad deal in its own right, but considering their ages, contracts and abilities, it has a much better chance of looking like a fair one four years from now.

Even though this feels like an even swap based on name-recognition and status, Subban for Weber is confounding.

Subban is younger, faster, a better skater, has a better contract, is a better offensive player, is a better possession player, has more peak years remaining and is much more marketable. In every way a player can hold value for a hockey franchise, Subban is superior to Weber.

Bergevin said he wasn't "shopping" Subban, that Weber is a "diamond in the rough" and even though Subban was "different," it was never a problem in Montreal.

Why is the idea of shopping Subban so taboo to Bergevin, especially if you end up trading him anyway? He also said it at the draft when he swore the idea of trading Subban was ridiculous. Does he think the idea that he was looking to deal Subban is worse than actually dealing Subban? And if you do your shopping, maybe you get something better than Weber.

Weber, a five-time All-Star who turns 31 in August, is not a diamond in the rough. He is a diamond that everyone in the world has seen many times.

And what is it about Subban that is different? Hmmm, what could it be? Oh, wait, there it is, right in front of our faces for all to see: Subban has a Norris Trophy and Weber does not.

Unlike the LOTR movie, there was an actual unexpected twist no one saw coming—Stamkos returned to Tampa despite giving every indication he would sign somewhere else.

Stamkos looked around, took the lay of the land and decided to stay with the Lightning on a very fair deal; at $8.5 million per season, Stamkos didn't come close to the $10 million cap hit of Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings.

Imagine if the final battle in the movie wasn't ghosts coming to save Viggo Mortensen's day (seriously, how does anyone older than 9 enjoy these films?), but instead Stamkos appeared from nowhere and murdered all the stupid hobbits and elves and had an orgy with like a dozen Orcs. It would have been a more satisfying ending but not one anybody expected.

The problem is over the next two years, as the Lightning need new deals for Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov, Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat and Jonathan Drouin. Unless the cap makes a big jump, it's almost impossible for the Lightning to keep everyone unless Las Vegas takes Ryan Callahan off their hands.

If it's anything like the LOTR saga, we will get three more transactions in a few years that are nowhere near as fun as the ones Wednesday that will make you wonder why they made them at all.