Pat Curcio continues to wheel and deal,
searching for the right mix of players to propel the San Francisco Bulls
forward as the Kelly Cup playoff race heats up.
With 19 games remaining, the Bulls’ head
coach and president pulled the trigger on two major trades this week, bringing
in a pair of NHL prospects, Tristan King and Bryan Cameron, in exchange for Alex
Tuckerman, Martin Lee and Rylan Galiardi.
“I looked at our roster and we had to get a
little better up front, more skill, guys who could finish,” Curcio said. “We
had to make these deals.”
Right now, the Bulls (19-27-1-6) are losers in
four of their last five games and they’re hanging on to the eighth and final
playoff spot in the Western Conference by only four points over the Bakersfield
Condors.
The Bulls sent Tuckerman and Lee to the Utah
Grizzlies on Tuesday to obtain Cameron, a third round pick of the Los Angeles
Kings in the 2007 NHL draft. Cameron was the Grizzlies second-leading scorer
with 38 points (15 goals, 23 assists) and Curcio said his style of play reminds
him of former-New York Islanders forward Mike Bossy.
“He’s more of scorer than Dean Ouellet,”
Curcio said. “He’s up and down the wing and he just finds ways to score.”
But hooking Cameron wasn’t enough. The Bulls
pulled off another blockbuster move on Wednesday, shipping Galiardi to the
Idaho Steelheads for King, the team’s active leader in goals (18) and points
(37) in 35 games.
“The
kid is amazing,” Curcio said of the Dallas Stars prospect. “He’s now our
highest points per game player.”
Curcio said the Steelheads were willing to
part ways with King because he will become a free agent after the season.
“They wanted someone they could have for the
future in Galiardi and for me, I’m looking to get into the playoffs, whether we
can keep Tristan next year or not,” he said. “The next six weeks are more
important than looking that far ahead.”
The Bulls coach said he likes the
deals because the team acquired two top scorers for three players who weren’t
necessarily daily fixtures in his lineup.
Lee rejoined the club less than a month ago
and had been scratched from the lineup since defenseman Mikael Tam returned
from AHL Worcester last week. Galiardi was acquired in the Justin Bowers deal
in January, but he played only five games with the team before he was sidelined
with concussion symptoms on Jan. 26.
“We haven’t had Galiardi in the last [11]
games, Lee has only played two of the last 12 games and Tuckerman was a guy –
if we were healthy – who might be rolling in and out of the lineup,” he said.
“At the end of the day, these are trades I’m really excited about.”
The Bulls scored only one goal in
back-to-back losses to the Stockton Thunder last weekend. But with Cameron and
King on ice, Curcio said his club will have three lines that can put the puck
in the net.
“If Deano (Ouellet) and Peter (Sivak) get
shut down now, we’ve got a depth of guys who can score,” he said. “Against
Stockton, they shut down our two best players and we had nothing else.”
Defenseman Cody Carlson will skate for the
Bulls in the weekend’s contests against the Steelheads after X-rays on his foot
returned negative. Curcio said Carlson’s status allowed him to package Lee with
Tuckerman to acquire Cameron.
“If [Carlson] was going to be out for any
length of time we would have had to rethink giving up Marty Lee,” he said.
Both Cameron and King will suit up for the
Bulls this weekend against the Steelheads.
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