Winners and Losers of the Trade Deadline

The trade deadline brought alot of surprises.  Ironically, most of the prominent action came before deadline day.

February 27, 2012 was expected to be a day with big moves and teams making that added push to secure a Stanley Cup Championship come late May.  However, most teams made depth moves and there were no major buyers or sellers on deadline day.

For example, the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins traded away three prospects in two separate deals for veteran forward and former Bruin Brian Rolston, and defenseman Mike Mottau and Greg Zanon.

With that being said here are my winners and losers for the 2012 trade deadline:

WINNERS:

1) Los Angeles Kings:  With the addition of Jeff Carter, the Kings made a conscious effort to improve their struggling offense.  The time for L-A to win is now, with top players such as Drew Doughty, Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar playing at the prime of the their careers.  Carter brings that offensive flair and scoring tough the Los Angeles has lacked.  He offers the combination of playmaking ability with natural scoring ability that is unique in this league.

2) New Jersey Devils: Prior to their four game losing streak the Devils had won nine of eleven games and were as high as fourth place in the East.  At the deadline New Jersey added veteran defenseman Marek Zidlicky, who brings an added offensive touch to their blueline, and at age thirty-five, brings a veteran presence for young defenseman Adam Larsson to learn from.  Smart move for a Devils team that has an aging Marty Brodeur in net, whose career is certainly on its last legs,

LOSERS:

1) Philadelphia Flyers: For such a poor defensive team, they were never rumored at the deadline to be in the discussions to acquire a top goaltender or defenseman.  Philly sits at twenty-seventh in the league in Goals Against and twenty-second in penalty kill which signals to me that help on the blue line or between the pipes is needed.  They picked u Pavel Kubina before Deadline day, however, Kubina has proven that when playoff time comes he typically disappears.  The only time the Flyers were brought up in rumor discussion was in the Rick Nash sweepstakes, which certainly was not the teams top need.  Not the brightest deadline move by a Flyer team that made the Cup Finals two years ago.

2) Minnesota Wild: This team proved in the beginning of the season that their defense and goaltending could carry them for parts of the year, leading the Western Conference through the beginning third of the season.  Since then, however, the Wild have fallen from first to out of the playoff picture, proving that their top line of Dany Heatly, Devin Setoguichi, and Mikku Koivu, could not carry them through the entire season.  At the deadline, the Wild only picked up a young defenseman from the Bruins.

As the season concludes in the last month and a half of the season, we'll see if my analysis holds to be true, but the Trade Deadline always seems to make or break a teams championship hopes, and we'll just have to wait a little bit longer to see what team that is for the 2012 season.