Jets shake up their roster once again - vinaa23's Dynasty

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Jets shake up their roster once again

Posted on May 1, 2014 at 04:00 AM.

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WINNIPEG, DEC. 22 - Before the season started, the Winnipeg Jets made 3 trades in a row and the GM Kevin Cheveldayoff stated that this year would be a rebuilding one for the team.
Well, almost at the mid-season mark, it seems like he has changed his mind. Winnipeg has found a lot of success this season, but the team's defense has been lackluster all year. Combine it with the fact that James Reimer isn't an elite goalie�
And we have Winnipeg conceding lots of goals. Most important: lots of CHEAP goals.
The team had some "spare" players. Notoriously, Bryan Little. Little entered the season as the team's first line center, but a broken leg took him out of rotation for 10 weeks, allowing the rise of rookie Mark Scheifele, who developed an incredible chemistry with forwards Ladd and Wheeler.
Now, Scheifele is making a run for the Art Ross, meanwhile Wheeler is the frontrunner for winning the Maurice Richard.
"Bryan (Little) is an amazing player. But when he was taken down with that injury, we sort of learned to play without him. So why keep him here, in a role where he certainly wouldn't be happy, if we can address some of our other issues by sending him to another team where he can be more important than he is going to be here?"
The main question for Cheveldayoff was: which team? Little can provide an offense boost, so it should be a team in need of a first or, at max, second line center while having something good to give up, but on defense.
The answer came from the desert, where the now-former Winnipeg Jets� been playing since 1996.
The Phoenix Coyotes has been struggling to find the back of the net for some years by now. Meanwhile, they have a talented defense with the likes of K. Yandle, M. Stone and O. Ekman-Larsson.
So it made sense: Phoenix would get a first liner, but one of the aforementioned defensemen would have to go to Winnipeg. Which one? Well, that seemed to be a problem.
Not for Cheveldayoff, as he had someone in mind: Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
The Swedish defenseman isn�t someone who you look for to strengthen your defense, since he�s more of an offensive defenseman. However, with him, the Jets should be allowed to move Zach Bogosian to the second pair and Jake Gardiner to the third, creating one of the most depth defenses on the NHL.
But the trade couldn�t work salary-wise. And that�s when Cheveldayoff made his magic.
He threw in the trade backup blue-liner Keaton Ellerby plus three good prospects with high potential, including a goalie from the CHL considered to be elite material some years from now (sorry I can�t remember their names and I don�t know where I can see it, but this goalie in special had a really high trade value, so I think his potential must be REALLY high too). The prospects, while giving Phoenix a good base for the future, had low salaries.
Therefore, he received in exchange Ekman-Larsson, C Antoine Vermette, backup G Thomas Greiss and backup C J. Halpern.
Some might consider this trade a steal, cause the Jets even managed to address another issue of theirs: the depth at center position. And they even did it by shipping a center.
Steal or not, one thing is for sure: The Jets are locked and loaded for the playoffs.
And few teams would want to cross their path.

Here is the trade:

Phoenix sends: D O. Ekman-Larsson, C A. Vermette, G T. Greiss and C J. Halpern.

Winnipeg sends: C Bryan Little, D K. Ellerby, 3 top prospects