HITME Kings Making Trades

When I agreed to manage the simulation 1972-73 Los Angeles Kings, I knew things weren't going to be easy.

I inherited the Hollywood monarchy before they had Marcel Dionne and Dan Maloney. I made my own changes, acquiring Reggie Leach and Bobby Rousseau, but that has not helped out a pop-gun offense in Dionne's absence. I have only 5 wins in 17 games as a result. The only good news is I'm one point out of a playoff spot.

Today I made two trades: one for immediate help, one to stick with my original plan of building for 2 or 3 years down the road.

Pictured to the right is Jean Pronovost, a speedy sniper with the 1970s Pittsburgh Penguins. He scores 40, 43 and 52 goals over the NEXT three season. This season he's scheduled to score just over 20. Pittsburgh, for some reason, wasn't using Pronovost, so I swapped Don Kozak for him. Hopefully he still will find 20 goals in him this season. He will be a UFA in our league's off-season, and I will likely lose him, but Kozak didn't figure into my plans either.

I then traded Craig Patrick and minor leaguer Jake Rathwell to the New York Islanders for Garry Howatt and Terry Crisp. Patrick could help the Islanders this season, but on my team he was a number 5 center. Crisp and Howatt won't help me at all this year, but in the next couple of years they will add some nice, cheap aggression. At least I won't have to fill those holes when we get around to that season.

My team is playing decently defensively, and Rogie Vachon has picked up his play in net, though he has no run support. I have to find some scoring chemistry.

Because I have no scoring ability, I've been using Butch Goring, Chico Maki and Bobby Rousseau on my top unit as a shut down line. The line has played well.

On line 2 I've tried my darndest to get some Juha Widing (2 goals), Mike Corrigan (6) and Serge Bernier (4) hot. Pronovost will slip in here for Bernier.

My newly mixed third line of Ralph Backstrom (2), Bob Berry (3) and Reggie Leach (2) had a good game against Montreal, and have earned another trial together.

That leaves a 4th line of Vic Venasky, Murray Wilson and at this point Bernier.

UPDATE Well that didn't work, at least not so far. First three games with Pronvost, my team scores a combined total of 2 goals and is shutout twice.