Deadline passes without Bees making trade

HIDALGO – With Monday’s 3 p.m. trading deadline looming, Killer Bees coach Chris Brooks said he talked to every team in the league. Yes, even Terry Ruskowski and the Laredo Bucks.

But like his talks with the Bucks, his discussions with the rest of the CHL didn’t lead to any trades before the deadline to complement last Wednesday’s acquisition of defenseman Andrew Davis from Missouri in exchange for rookie Mike Harr. In fact, with 13 of the league’s 15 teams having realistic playoff aspirations, Monday’s deadline day was quiet as only four other trades were made.

“A lot of the talk and chatter wasn’t apples for apples. It was apples for oranges-type things,” Brooks said. “I had some teams that had tough housing situations where they couldn’t make deals because of housing or they couldn’t make deals because of injuries.”

Brooks said there were “probably six teams that were actively” looking to make moves before Monday’s deadline but he couldn’t come to an agreement with any of them. He said there were players on his team who did attract interest from others but declined to name them, with Brooks saying he didn’t think he would have been getting equal value in return.

The two transactions that didn’t include future considerations – Bossier-Shreveport acquiring all-star defenseman Jim Jorgensen and the rights to Jason Deleurme from Wichita for forward Neil Clark and Mississippi swapping forward Matt Pierce for Texas’ Elias Godoy – were ones Brooks was involved with.

“If I could have made us better, I would have made us better,” Brooks said. “I’m not going to make a trade just to make a trade. I’m not going to take a hit to make a trade. All the talks that I had with the teams I talked with, I felt that I was going to take a hit in a trade. That’s not the purpose of making deals.

“The purpose of making deals is to make your team better. And I wasn’t able to do that.”

With the deadline come and gone, Brooks will need to sign free agents to improve the Bees, who find themselves in a four-team race for two playoff spots. At 19-19-7 and struggling to both win on the road and hold onto third-period leads, Brooks said his efforts to bolster the lineup didn’t end at 3 p.m. Monday.

“There’s going to be a lot of movement in this league as teams get healthy. In any way we can improve as we move forward we will improve,” Brooks said. “It was an interesting day as it progressed.”

Brian Sandalow covers the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him at (956) 683-4436.