Hi All,
As Minstrel suggested to me, I'm going to post a little recap of what I did with my Jackets team when I got a hold of them.
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I did a lot of housecleaning the first day on the job. This included firing 6 scouts and a trainer. Unfortunetly for the old Blue Jackets organization that was only the beginning of my axe-swinging.
Over the next few days I scouted my team and swung some major trades including:
Anson Carter and the 2007 5th Round pick to CAR for Erik Cole
David Vyborny to BUF for their 2007 1st round pick
Ty Conkin and 2 2007 4th Round picks to PHI for Antero Niittymaki
A 2007 2nd pick and 2007 3rd round pick to NYR for Marc Staal (I feel this is the best trade of the bunch - long term anyway!)
2 2007 1st round picks to ANA for Bobby Ryan
Bryan Berard to BOS for Brad Stuart
Fredik Norrena and Filip Novak to OTT for Alexei Kaigorodov
I also traded some minor players for picks (obviously!).
Also fired in the month of September were Asisstant GM Jim Clark and Head Coach Gerard Gallant. I hired Frank Provenzano and Robbie Ftorek (respectively) to replace them.
I went 3-3-1 in October losing 2 of those 3 games by one late goal. Hence, I made some more moves to trim the fat off the team, including:
Alexander Svitov and the 2007 7th round pick to BUF for Paul Gaustad
Manny Malhotra, Jason Chimera, a 2007 6th round pick and the rights to Kirill Starkov to SJ for Milan Michalek and a 2007 3rd round pick
Ron Hainsey to COL for Ossi Vaananen (sweet!)
Fredrik Modin to SJ for a 2007 1st round pick
Through the 22nd of November I'm 6-3 including 3 solid thumpings of Nashville that I was very satisfied with.
Currently my lines are:
Nash-Fedorov-Cole
Balastik-Kaigorodov-Zherdev
Michalek-Gaustad-Ortmeyer(he was on waivers!)
Fritsche-Brule-Ryan
Suart-Foote
Vaananen-Klesla
Kloucek-Staal
I'm pretty happy with the lineup overall, but I have some more moves to make. I want to send all the kids back down to the farm, or possibly back to juniors, so I'm looking at some trades for 3rd and 4th liners. But can you imagine that 4th line in 3-4 years? Mind blowing.
I'd also like to trade for a 2nd line LW. I like Kaigorodov and Zherdev together, but Balastik don't have the goods. I know somone will tell me that I had a perfect 2nd line LW in Modin, but his 8 pts(2-6) and -4 in 18 games just didn't cut it for me. I can use the 1st round pick to acquire someone worthy of a spot on my (possibly!) All-Russian line. I've considered moving Zherdev to the LW and moving Bobby Ryan up to the 2nd line RW spot, but at 19 I don't think he can fly with the big boys. Soon Bobby, soon.
Stats-wise, Zherdev leads the way with 11 goals. Nash leads in Assists, with 18 and Points with 28.
Surprisingly enough, Fedorov has played very well for me with the highest average rating on the team, a 8.38. He's got 17 pts(8-9) in only 13 games played due to injury (pulled groin). I'm expecting him to tear every muscle in his body and retire any day now, so he doesn't have to do much to exceed my expectations.
On the defense, Stuart has looked like a good move racking up 22 pts (5-17) in his 20 games with the team.
Klesla has looked just awesome defensively with a +13 rating.
Actually, now that I look at it, none of my D-men have a minus rating which is pretty awesome.
Niitty has been typically naff (as he usually is in his first season) going 12-8 with an ugly 3.25 GAA average and a save perventage of only .880. I'm on the hunt for a goalie/defense coach to improve his positioning.
As I said, I'm not done tinkering...I have things in store for both the players and some of the coaching staff.
Overall record through 20 games 12-7-1 81GF 65GA 13.5%PP 74.7%PK
Hope you enjoyed my update.
Cheers.