Every few weeks we will profile a NEW favorite player!

Profile #4: Martin Skoula – Defense

We know that you all were hoping we'd profile another one of the Dives' big guns this time, but instead we have to get Martin Skoula done as quickly as possible. We've got a sneaking suspicion that Martin isn't going to be around very much longer, and we can't let that happen before we rub Avsmonkey's face in it.

Divesfan doesn't like to talk about it now, but not long ago Martin Skoula was one of the future "young superstars" that Avsholes and Media Homers were blathering about for years -- the rising stars who were supposed to cement the Dives' eternal dominance as the rest of the NHL aged away.

Remember those young superstars? Gee, where are they all now?

As of this writing, Alex Tanguay has become more notable for his diving than his scoring, and was recently dangled as trade bait in an attempt to land the not-very-young and not-very-superstarish Martin Lapointe. Milan Hejduk might become the first human being to actually achieve invisibility. Chris Drury is so great that the Dives traded him to Calgary for an unproven defenseman and two faceless jobbers. The rest of Colorado's young prospects so far resemble a clump of anonymous tadpoles in Dives jerseys, with none of them yet breaking out to fill the gaping offensive holes created by Pierre Lacroix's compulsive, paranoid trading.

And then there's Martin Skoula. For us to sit and bag on Skoula for being a wash actually borders on the pointless and redundant. After all, Pierre Lacroix already broadcast his lack of faith in the young defenseman to the world by trading away the Dives' premier hotshot forward in hopes that Derek Morris might bolster their sagging blue line. As if his point needed an exclamation, Lacroix then dangled Skoula in front of the Bruins as part of the rumored Lapointe trade.

It's perfectly clear that Lacroix is desperate to unload Skoula, and it's really no surprise why. Whenever something bad happens to the Dives, there is a 98% chance that Skoula was on the ice. Skoula is so flaky that he might even be responsible for bad things happening in games in which he isn't even playing. The next time you see a car accident or witness a calamity of any sort, look around and you will probably see Martin Skoula, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. He has been that bad.

In short, to say Skoula hasn't lived up to the initial hype generated by Denver's media homers is like saying OJ Simpson had marital issues. To a man, the same clueless, slobbering, Colorado know-nothing media pundits who once proclaimed him the next Bobby Orr now quietly wish he would just go away.

Of course, once Skoula gets traded away from the Divealanche he'll probably score 20 goals, rack up a plus/minus of +56, and win the Norris. And we will be laughing our asses off!

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