We lost defenseman John Marino to a strained forearm for a few weeks. So we put him on the Injury list and brought up our only other defenseman, Eric Jeremiah. It's funny that several 2/2 defensemen have been on waivers, but they are all un-American
Starting March 18, I took my 5 scouts that were assigned to players entering the NHL Draft and cleared their jobs. Then, I went to the draft page, and started looking at the top American players in the draft. Every week, I'll have 5 players scouted by our scouts to try to better prepare for the draft.
Defenseman Neal Pionk had knee soreness which kept him out of several games as it was day to day... Winger Ryan Dzingel had hip abductor strain which kept him out of a few games.
I also renewed defensive coach Clarence Poteat's contract for 4 years at $85,500 per year. He very good with Defenseman, great with prospects, very good with offensive skills and great with defensive skills.
All my other staff already were good.
We were 8-4-0 in April and I played through the end of the season. We had one game against New Jersey which we lost in OT, so we finish 8-4-1, end up in 10th place with 89 points in our conference, 5 points out of the playoffs. Our goal for year 2 is 100 points. Yeah, good luck
We also pick up RD Zach Trotman off waivers. He's a 1.5/1.5 player who is 29 and has 2 years of $700k each on his contract. Too late for this season, but adds some needed depth on defense for us.
I wouldn't say it was a great season, but I'm content. Considering that, if I didn't HAVE to have only Americans on the team, I would have made the playoffs for sure... it wasn't bad. Now we just have to find ways to get better... the draft is going to be important in this game.
