A comment in the Sun's account of last night's trade caught my eye:

Sutter says Sauve's performance in the 7-4 loss to the Avs wasn't a factor.

"It's not something that happened last week, this is something we've worked on for a long time," said Sutter.

Two choices here:

He's lying. He spoke out of frustration after the Avs game. He was disappointed with Sauve that game, but was otherwise not that unhappy with the guy. Whether he regretted or not, he knew it was a bell he couldn't un-ring, and had to pursue a trade.

He's telling the truth. He was unhappy with Sauve's progress, focus, and work habits over the season to date, and had decided that he had to find a new backup. The Avs game confirmed his instincts, and solidified his decision that Sauve was outta here. Having decided that, he elected to use Sauve as an example to send a message to the rest of the players. This message was probably a hair harsher that he would have liked in retrospect, but it also reflected his own frustration at his error in judgement in acquiring the guy in the first place.

Thoughts:

• Truth or Lie, from one perspective the trade was a good thing. Nothing, but nothing, screws up professional athletes and teams like uncertainty. (Bill Simmons, for instance, has written ad nauseam about the importance in the NBA of a firm 9-man rotation where everyone knows their roles). "What's happening with Phil?" is now a dead issue in the Flames locker room. That's good.
• That said, I sure hope for the team's sake that it's Truth. If Sauve was kind of a jerk-off, or just doing the bare minimum, then that will have been sufficiently evident to half or all of the team, and Sutter's credibility is intact, if not his huggability. If not, then not only did Sutter go off on a guy who didn't deserve it, but also traded him and another guy who wasn't involved just to cover his ass. That's bad.
• On the previous point, shouldn't this be the wheelhouse of the print beat reporters? I don't expect anything potentially inflammatory coming from the broadcast partners, but Cruickshank or Lefebvre or Sportak should be able to provide an honest assessment of Sutter's claims, based on what they've seen with their own two eyes. If I don't see any critical analysis tomorrow of Sutter's claims (regarding how well Sauve practiced, prepared, etc.), I'm going to be pretty disappointed. Not surprised, but disappointed.

Lastly, as a larf, here's what the Flames had to say about Phillipe on August 10th:

Questioned whether Philippe Sauve was ready to be an NHL backup goalie, David Marcoux didn't hesitate.

"Absolutely," answered Marcoux, the Calgary Flames goalie coach.

"He spent three years in the American Hockey League -- in his last year, he was dominating -- and has developed into a very good goalie.

"He's been through good times and he's been through bad times and he's used all that experience to build a wall around him."

Whoops. Really lastly, I just found what the Herald's Jean Lefebvre had to say about Sauve 4 weeks ago, in the Flames Mid-Term Report. Under the category of Biggest First-Half Development:

The emergence of Philippe Sauve as a legitimate option on those nights Kiprusoff needs a breather. The only image most Flames fans had of Sauve when he was acquired from the Colorado Avalanche was the 2003-04 contest the Flames pumped seven pucks past him. So much for first impressions -- Sauve have been quite good, sometimes even great, in limited work. Sauve's trustworthiness could be key in the second half as the Flames remain mindful of Kiprusoff's workload and ailing hip.

Either Jean is a bit inattentive, or Sutter's definition of "a long time" is a counterintuitive one.