Over the past week, Columbus has made 3 separate deals. First, Morgan Reilly was acquired from Carolina for a package including the most recent 1st Rd pick Dawson Mercer. "We liked what we saw from Mercer, but we needed to add to our backend and his value allowed us to do this", GM Moriarty had to say. 

Later that day, Columbus acquired Sean Couturier from the Islanders for former major free agent signing Alex Iafallo, Dominik Simon and a 2nd Rd pick. "Iafallo was a big part of our rebuild, unfortunately he wasn't going to crack our top 6 and we couldn't afford to have a $7 million man lead our 3rd line when we needed to shore up our D. He was huge for us last year and we are sorry he couldn't see out his contract."

Over the weekend, Columbus completed the trifecta of deals with the biggest of the 3, acquiring top line LW Sven Baertschi and starting goalie Kevin Poulin for former top prospect turned squandering starter Ilya Samsonov and Andrew Cogliano. "We would be remissed if we didn't say how disappointed we are to trade our once prized prospect in Samsonov. We wish it could have worked but we needed a change and we needed it immediately, thus he was a casualty of bad defence and offence and his value allowed us to pick up a top LW in the league. Cogliano is another guy we will miss after a stellar lone season bringing Columbus back to relevance. As for Poulin, we are excited to see what he can bring and Sven Baertschi can score, flat out. We are excited to see what these guys can bring."

Since the first deals were made, Columbus has gone 3-2-2 and have seen signs of major improvement. The biggest sign of improvement is in net where Kevin Poulin has over a .970 SV% in his 2 starts with only 2 goals allowed while winning one and tying the other. Columbus will face off against Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday, where they will look to improve and push themselves out of the basement.