|
Bill Zito is a pacesetter when it comes to GM aggressiveness |
|
|
|
|
|
No trophy is awarded for the NHL team that acquires the most impact players before the trade deadline. There's no guarantee that quality deadline activities will lead to a Stanley Cup. Far from it.
In 1999, the Detroit Red Wings were going for a third consecutive Stanley Cup championship. They brought in Chris Chelios, Wendel Clarke and Bill Ranford at the deadline. They were knocked out of the playoffs in the second round.
Yes. Ray Bourque won a Stanley Cup with Colorado after being acquired in a trade deadline deal. But it was in his second season, not his first in Denver.
Many NHL teams improve their teams with late-season deals. But only one wins the Stanley Cup.
But even with that history and knowledge staring us in the face, you can't help but be impressed with the job Bill Zito has done with the Florida Panthers.
He has been an NHL general manager for 19 months and you would be hard-pressed to name a general manager who has been more aggressive than he has been in creating a new identity for his franchise. Zito did inherit a quality collection of players. But he has turned over more than half of his roster in those 19 months.
A month on the job, he gave heavy hitter Radko Gudas a three-year contract because he wanted his team to be harder to play against. Zito traded for Sam Reinhart. He saw a diamond in the rough in Carter Verhaeghe and signed him to a free agent deal. Zito believed in Anthony Duclair. He traded for Sam Bennett. This weekend, he gave up a first round pick to land shutdown defenseman Ben Chiarot from Montreal.
Based on what we are hearing, Zito is close to reeling in a deal for rental Claude Giroux to play on the top line with Aleksander Barkov. At worst, the Panthers are the favorite.
Presuming the trade occurs, Zito will be one of the winners of this trade deadline.
Who knows whether the Panthers will win the Cup. A Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Florida Panthers still seems like a toss-up. Plenty of good teams in the Eastern Conference. The NHL postseason is historically challenging to project.
Sportsbooks make billions of dollars every year off fans who truly believe they have insight when it comes to predicting who will win in the postseason.
But what we can say with certainty is Zito is doing his job effectively. He is doing everything in his power to give his team a better chance to succeed. That's really all a fan base can ask of a general manager. With 32 teams now in the league, a GM has to be aggressive to move to the front of the herd.
Zito has done that.
When Zito was a player agent, he was not the league's highest-profile agent. But he earned a reputation as an agent who identified under-appreciated players and helped them get into a position to find success. Tim Thomas. Kimmo Timonen. Brian Rafalski. John Madden. Those were some of his clients
His gift seems to be that he envisions how pieces fit together.
Zito has used that same ability to help provide this team with the push it needed to become a contender. Zito is only in his second season, but has clearly become one of the pacesetters for NHL general managers. He never stops pushing.
Blogger •HHOF Writer's column on the NHL • 
Join the Discussion:
»