After making the playoffs and advancing to the second round last season, we wanted to continue to build on that success this year and started the season with relative high hopes. We had a killer first pairing in Josi/Hedman and a top scoring combo in Simmonds/Bergeron, after all. We also added a few more pieces in the offseason, so everything should have been fine ...
... and then it wasn't. We got very little scoring outside of the first line and were terrible defensively, slumping out to a 10-19-1 record in the first 30 games and pretty much out of the playoff picture. Unacceptable in the hockey center of the universe ... so if we wanted to make a second playoff appearance in a row, changes had to be made! Top priority was to find more balance on the blueline. There was a huge gap between Josi/Hedman and the rest of our D corps, so ideally we wanted to spread the quality a little bit in that area. We also wanted to improve our second line and find somebody else to play with Simmonds/Bergeron, because Steen had been a disappointment (5 goals in 30 games).
What followed were lots of talks with numerous GMs and, luckily, a number of deals that would be instrumental in our u-turn.
We tried hard to make even more deals and especially improve the second line, but couldn't find anything that made a ton of sense and as a result stayed put after making those 7 deals and signing depth defenseman Robert Bortuzzo. We were happy to re-acquire Blake Wheeler, who had already played great hockey for us last season and who, so we hoped, would have the same chemistry with Bergeron again. We added JVR on the second line and picked up Anders Lee, who's not that good in this year's sim but should get a nice rerate in the summer. And most importantly, we found a mix on the blueline that we were happy with.
The results have been unbelievable. In the 22 games with every of the new additions in the lineup, the team has played on a 119 point pace and completely flipped the GF/GA ratio, resulting in one of the biggest turnarounds you'll ever see
All of our acquisitions have been a big part in it, too. Wheeler has proven to be an outstanding fit on the top line (having the league's top scorer on the same line helps for sure though
), Yandle is scoring close to a point per game, JVR has provided vital secondary scoring and DeKeyser and Krug have been great as well. Heck, even Bortuzzo has been awesome.
So all of a sudden, we are in a playoff spot (7th in the East) and hope to keep it going. Go Leafs!!!
Seven trades to save a season
