The old weather addage goes that the month of March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. And could there be any more of a fitting epitath for goaltender Tommy Salo? The once Swedish stalwart roared in five March's ago and was lion like in leading the Oilers to the playoffs. Now he's The Surhammar Sieve who leaves lamb like as arguably the league's worst starting goalie.

Or at least he used to be a starter.

Kevin Lowe ended one of the league's longest running goaltending jokes early Tuesday morning when he dealt Tommy Salo and a 6th round selection to the Colorado Avalance for college defenseman Tom Gilbert.

Tommy Salo's career as an Oiler began in Mar of '99 when Glen Sather acquired him from the Islanders for oft injured centre Mats Lindgren and an 8th round selection. He made an immeadiate impact as he went 8-2-2 down the stretch and lead the Oilers into the playoffs. He also posted a sparkling .931 sv pct in that year's playoff sweep to the eventual Cup champions, Dallas, and it looked like the Oilers had a guy who could blossom into one of the league's best. Salo had a great regular season in '00 but faltered in the playoffs allowing some soft goals and this would be a trend that has continued to this day.

Kevin Lowe signed Salo to a longterm contract in Nov of '00 and it was four years, retroactive to the start of that season, plus a team option for two more seasons.

The non Oilers fan will point to his Belarus Blunder as the catalyist for his regression and maybe that is more than an inkling of truth to that theory. What some pundits and fans alike fail to mention is that in his first game back from Salt Lake, Salo allowed a similar goal to Nashville forward Vitali Yachmenev. But he also played wondefully down the stretch and it wasn't his fault that the Oilers didn't make the playoffs.

But Salo is nearing the end of his second terrible consecutive season and with the Oilers holding a four million plus option on his contract for the '05 season, it looked like a no brainer that Lowe would decide to decline it.

Here's a look at Salo's career with the Oilers: forecaster.ca

Tom Gilbert is a sophomore defenseman at the U of Wisconsin. He's physical with an offensive slant and has six goals and 13 assists for 19 points in 34 games this season. He's 6-3, 206 and turned 21 this past January. The Oilers became familiar with Gilbert while they watched his collegiate teammate, Brad Winchester finish his Badgers career last season.

The Avalanche selected Gilbert in the 4th round, 129th overall, in the '02 draft.

Here's his bio from the U of W website: uwbadgers.com

At the end of the day, the Oilers save ~ 600K in this deal and they can conceivably use this money to rent a play making a similar wage to Salo's, ie $3.9 mill. There hasn't been any indication of such a move but the Oilers have had a good year finanically with a new sponsourship agreement with Rexall and of course the finanical windfall of the Heritage Classic.

Considering how poorly Salo has played, Lowe is lucky to have gotten anything in return for the struggling Swede. But Colorado has one of the worst backups this side of Jamie Storr in youngster Philippe Sauve so Salo is certainly an upgrade.

Edmonton was prepared for this move depth wise because of their acquisiton of Jussi Markkanen last week.

It also marks the end of the career of one of the most coddled athletes in the history of Edmonton. It will be interesting to see how the next starting goalie, or goalies as it may be next season with a likely tandem of Conklin and Markkanen, will be viewed and treated in the press.