In a move that will give the Thrashers a needed shake up after a recent skid. The teams G.M Kirk Shuck believed a shake up was needed. He decided against moving any of his roster players as the team does currently sit with a little bit of a lead on the entire league in the standings. However even with their solid play the G.M wanted to make sure the squad realize's their is pressure to win every game not just to finish in first. With that he decided to bring in a solid D-man and occupy the teams 23 pro roster spot. With only 2 million cap room the team was looking for a cheap rated player who could still be rated good enough to jump into a top 3 line spot on the team. With the trade market pretty bare for players like this at forward or defence the team finally found someone they feel will be able to add alot to the franchise for this year and in the future with their contract.
The deal that was struck was between the Thrashers and the LA Kings and ended up looking like this.
To Atlanta- Andy Greene, Jeff Woywitka, Boston 1st this year.
To LA- Boom Boom (Blake) Geoffrion, Matt Bartkowski, Viktor Ekbom, Nashville 1st this year.
With a 5 year 796k contract Andy Greene is a guy we targetted and were finally able to bring in. Woywitka is having a bounce back year in Dallas NHL this season and will be a big time addition to the chicago wolves for this season. Getting bryce's 1st in a year where he sucks is always fun too..
We hated moving Geoffrion who has won AHL player of the week the last two weeks with 18pts in 10games and is very high in D.Poille's opinion.. also bartkowski is moving up the bruins system quickly but i think has limited offensive upside but is a solid defensive dman. Ekbom is a homerun type dman who will either be a top 4 guy or a career swede/ahl'er something we might end up regret doing. In getting the pieces we did is something we really liked for our pro team and felt it ok to sacrifice some future solid players.
