Sea of Tranquility on Deadline Day

So the trade deadline has come and gone and nothing much happened.  Some will say the Flames didn't do enough to bolster their lineup, some will say they didn't shed enough assets to start the rebuilding process.  Myself, I found it kind of comforting that nothing much happened.  After all, the team's been playing quite well the past two months, and I didn't really see any reason to change things.

Looking back, I remember thinking in November, or rather fearing in November, massive changes to the team.  It wasn't so much the fact that there might be changes, instead it was who would be making those changes.  I am, of course, talking about Darryl Sutter.

Last year's bizarre trades had me fearing for the Flames.  If Sutter was still in charge, I shudder to think what crazy moves he might have pulled off, like sending Dustin Boyd to Nashville for a fourth round pick, or Aaron Johnson and a pick to Edmonton for Steve freakin' Staois.  But with Jay Feaster at the helm, there wasn't any fear of that.

Unlike Sutter, Feaster was quite open about his intentions at the deadline.  He said he planned to pick up a depth defenceman (depth defenceman: not a top 6 defenceman) and a top 9 forward.  Come the end of the day, that's exactly what happened.  So comforting.

Perhaps this explains why the Flames have improved so much since Darryl was fired.  I never thought the GM could have such an influence on his team's play, and had always attributed the turn around at the time of Sutter's departure to coincidence.  But then I started thinking that maybe the players felt the same way I did.  Maybe when they weren't playing so well in October and November, they too were scared of Sutter making some crazy moves.

Maybe they couldn't focus on the task at hand, as they were worried they'd come into the locker room one day to find Sutter had traded Kiprusoff (and a couple of picks) for Roman Turek. Or find that Backlund had been traded (along with another pick) for Steve Staois' older brother.

But with Sutter gone, and Feaster in charge, perhaps the players felt comfortable knowing there wouldn't be any trade deadline moves to make the team older, slower and more expensive, while at the same time giving them a later draft pick.  Maybe the players enjoyed the calm of this trade deadline day as much as I did, and maybe that's why they've been playing so well the past two months.

-TheRev


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