The conference calls with the major players in the deals just wound up and everyone sounded thrilled at packing up their belongings and heading West to the Vancouver Canucks.
The first stop will be tomorrow night in St. Louis where both Bryan Smolinski and Brent Sopel will be in the line-up against the Blues.
Sopel could barely hide his enthusiasm at the thought of returning to Vancouver - that bodes well for a Canucks team who've had the perfect chemistry all year long.
"My family is very excited, we never wanted to leave Vancouver in the first place," said Sopel. "I'll do whatever the Canucks want me to do."
Later on, Smolinski joined the conference after a quick stop at the United Center in Chicago to pick up a few things, and then he told everyone how he felt about being the newest member of the Canucks.
"My reaction to the trade is I'm ecstatic about it - to have a chance to play with a great team and fulfill the expectations this team has..if I can help in any way, I'm ecstatic to be able to do that."
Smolinski was asked how it feels to be leaving Chicago and joining a Canadian team in the thick of a playoff race - much like the races he was in with the Senators in previous years.
"We all know Vancouver is a more beautiful city than Ottawa," he said with a laugh. "To be in the heart of it all in the West excites me very much."
GM Dave Nonis commented on whether or not the Canucks are done wheeling and dealing before the deadline.
"It depends if something else comes along that we think will help make our team better," he said. "At this point I don't have anything else in the hopper."
The Canucks jumped through a bunch of hoops to complete the deals today - which is why there were reports about the Smolinski deal before the trade was even confirmed by the NHL.
Marc Chouinard was placed on waivers, the Sopel deal happened, Ryan Kesler was then placed on long term injury, which opened up some cap room and then the Smolinski deal hit the wires after the NHL confirmed the cap space was available.
By putting Kesler on long term injury, his salary won't be counted towards the regular season but he also can't return before the playoffs. Once the post-seasons begins, he can come back whenever he's ready.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, there's still work to be done.
By giving up a couple second round picks and a fourth to acquire these depth guys, Nonis didn't feel like he jeopardized the teams future.
"I said all along we would move picks if it was the right thing for our team but we weren't about to gut the draft to do it - and I think it's pretty clear we didn't do that," said Nonis.
"We're still going to have two picks in more than likely the top 35 in this draft, and if you look over the next two drafts, we had four second round picks and now we'll only have two. I'm not too concerned about it."
It sounded like the GM wanted to make sure he gave his players the best chance he could to push for a playoff spot and hopefully go deep in the post-season.
"I want everyone to be able to sleep at night when we're done this year and to say we did all we could to go as far as we could."
I think it's safe to say he's done just that.
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