PWHL Ottawa’s Hirshfeld believed trading popular players improved team

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Building a winner takes sacrifices from everyone in an organization, from support staff to players to coaches, right up to management and ownership.

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PWHL Ottawa GM Mike Hirshfeld can attest to that after working through his first trade deadline this week.

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In two separate deals on Monday, Hirshfeld added experience and scoring by moving two popular players and, the next morning, he admitted saying goodbye to Lexie Adzija and Amanda Boulier was painful.

But, he and his staff believe, it also had to be done.

“I think the reality is the trades are very difficult in any league,” Hirshfeld began on a Zoom call. “And this being the first trade deadline of a new league, there’s absolutely no precedent. It was a new experience for everyone. We felt like we were extremely well-prepared and I think that paid off for us.”

Adzija was dealt to Boston for Shiann Darkangelo, who only has one assist in 17 games, but last season was captain and a point-per-game player with a Toronto Six team that won the Premier Hockey Federation title.

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Boulier, a defenceman, was sent to Montreal for Tereza Vanisova, who has two goals and eight assists, and is someone Hirshfeld called one of the best skaters in the world.

Boulier was beloved by teammates and the rest of the organization.

“Incredible person, dry sense of humuor, but really helped us build the culture that we now have in Ottawa,” Hirshfeld said. “She was integral in the locker room, one of the nicest, funniest people I’ve met in the game of hockey. Montreal is getting a great player.

“When you trade away players with those personalities and all the things that they brought, it is a difficult decision, but again, my responsibility is to put the best team on the ice and I think that these trades make us better as a hockey team, no matter how difficult it was to to say goodbye to Lexie and Amanda.”

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Adzija brought much more to the table than just five goals, which made her the third leading lamp-lighter on the team. She was a crowd favourite.

“We have the best fan base in the PWHL and Lexi was a major reason that we were able to cultivate that fan base so early, whether it was from her walk-ins or feisty play on the ice,” Hirshfeld said. “She was an incredible resource for our organization and we’ll always be grateful to her for that.

“I personally will always remember that empty-net goal that she scored against Toronto, where she runs it around the boards and it kind of bounced out around centre ice and went into the empty net. That helped us secure our first our first victory at TD place. Nothing but positives to say about what she brought to the table.”

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Hirshfeld is aware of the social media outcry caused by dealing Adzija.

“I understand that Lexie had a great connection with our fans and that made it extremely difficult,” he said. “We factor that in, of course. But again, my responsibility as the GM is to put the best team on the ice and to win championships. And this move was made strictly through that lens.

“We can’t let popularity or social media presence affect our decisions and we feel like this is the best decision for our organization.”

Strictly from an overview, Ottawa traded six goals and eight assists for players that had two goals and nine assists. How does that help the offence?

“We think we added goals through Tereza, and that was obviously the first domino, the first trade that we made,” Hirshfeld said. “We felt good about adding goal-scoring through through her play. Shiann, she’s been a goal scorer in her career. I’m not sure if she was used in the way that she’s played in the past. We’re going to play her at centre, so we’re really excited about her upside and what she brings to the table there.

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“I think you’ll see more points from her in Ottawa than he did in Boston. She’ll get more playing time here, potentially than she did in Boston. So we think she can add, you know, to our third and fourth lines offensively and she can play an important role.”

Both newcomers, Hirshfeld feels, will not only prepare Ottawa for a run at a playoff spot — which it sits one point from with seven games remaining — but also beyond.

“My responsibility as the GM is to put the best team on the ice and compete for championships,” Hirshfeld said. “Both of these decisions and trades that we made, were made strictly through that lens of building the best team and winning championships. I can assure you these decisions are incredibly difficult, especially when you have an impact on individuals and their families. But a lot of hard work was put into these moves and we believe it makes us stronger now and in the future.”

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Ottawa’s seven-game dash to the finish line begins with Wednesday’s road meeting with New York. Being on the outside of the playoff picture looking in, every time the team steps on the ice, it’s essentially a must-win situation.

“I think we’re really close, to be honest with you,” Hirshfeld said. “I think we’ve seen improvements from Game 1 through to Game 17. We’ve had six overtime losses and we’ve lost five other games by one goal, so I think that that we’re right there and we just need to be a little more focused.

“That’s why at this trade deadline, we were trying to tweak, we weren’t trying to make major overhauls, because we think we’re really close. We identified two areas that we wanted to improve on and we’re really excited about the players that we brought into it to help us in those areas.

“We think we’re really close to to hitting on all cylinders.”

dbrennan@postmedia.com

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