The deal was somewhat of a gamble as we felt that A) we are better than to be a bottom team which wouldn't give us such a high pick in the end, B) we should improve in the long run with Parise on our team as long as he stays healthy and C) we just didn't see Jakub Voracek as a top line player for the future. Looking at the deal now we still feel we made the right decision as the results have improved greatly, but there are also a number of factors that still worries us.
Zach Parise has been a steady contributor since joining our club and has worked well on the top line with Patrice Bergeron and Rick Nash, as expected. That wasn't a worry. How he'll perform when he comes back from injury is still a question mark, but we're hopeful he'll have success and continue to be a vital part of our team for many seasons to come.
The fact that Voracek has been performing better doesn't come as a big surprise and in a perfect world we would've been able to keep him and the 1st round pick as well as getting Parise, but we can't have it all. Voracek will surely have a nice career and we wish him all the best. The main thing will however be what the 1st round pick turns into.
What pleases us is that we after the deal are fighting for a playoff spot which has us playing for something this season. Having traded the 1st rounder we really don't want to struggle at the bottom of the pack and feel we made the wrong decision. In the end it comes down to what we wanted to do with our rebuild. Keeping the pick and not getting Parise would have meant more seasons struggling. We decided that we wanted to be competitive sooner and with Parise we felt our chances were better.
The additions of Matt Carle and Mathieu Garon has also helped the club be more successful even though we'd still like to be more consistent. We've had trouble against stronger teams which shows us that we've still got work to do, but at the same time we've had a good record against our main competition fighting for a playoff spot. At the moment the team is 9th in the Conference and we're confident we'll be able to fight for a playoff spot and hopefully making it into the postseason. Interestingly enough, we're just four points from making the playoffs, as well as being at the top of our Division and 3rd place in the Conference. So anything can still happen.
We're still looking to make moves to help us get better, as does every GM in the league. There are a couple of things we're looking at and we have some ideas as to what we'd like to do. But that doesn't mean we'll be making deals just for the sake of it. It has to make sense for what we want to do here. Mainly we're looking at bringing in help at the back end where we feel we could do with a bit more toughness.
