Yesterday Brian Burke held a press conference and the entire hockey world held its collective breath to find out what he did. Slowly but surely news started to come out that the Toronto Maple Leafs made two trades, virtually back to back. Here is what they were:

Toronto/Calgary trade

To Toronto:
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D Dion Phaneuf
F Fredrik Sjostrom
D Keith Aullie

To Calgary:
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F Matt Stajan
F Niklas Hagman
F Jamal Mayers
D Ian White

Toronto/Anaheim trade

To Toronto:
------------
G J.S. Giguere

To Anaheim:
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G Vesa Toskala
F Jason Blake

Now, I could sit here and debate who won and lost out of either deal, but that's not my job mostly because I don't care. The real question here is now that Brian Burke has made these trades, does it put pressure on Boston Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli to make a trade?

The short answer is simple and sweet; yes.

However I don't like working with short answers because then I have nothing else to talk about. I believe that the moves Burke made yesterday, coupled with the play of the Bruins, has certainly added some pressure on Chiarelli to get a trade.

At the beginning of the season many of the "national" newspapers, magazines and hockey-related shows had the Bruins in the Stanley Cup facing off against the Chicago Blackhawks. Throughout the season we've watched this team fly high and fall hard and are currently licking their wounds to the tune of a 6 game losing streak.

Throughout January, the Bruins have played their worst stretch of hockey in over a year (I wouldn't call the loss to Carolina in the playoffs last year their worst stretch of hockey) and a half. Their record in January is 3-11, which is an absolute disgrace.

So what exactly is the pressure for Chiarelli? What area does he need to address to make this team a contender, or at least, in the playoffs? The Bruins are currently in 11th (55 points) but they're two points of of 6th (Flyers, Panthers and Rangers have 57 points) and only 10 points back of 5th (Red hot Senators have 66 points).

Statistically the numbers should tell Peter that the Bruins need offense. Their offense is offensive and is the worst offense in the NHL. The Bruins average 2.34 goals per game, which ranks them dead last with teams like Carolina (14th in the East with 45 points, 18th in the NHL with 2.63 G/G), Toronto (15th in the East with 45 points, 17th in the NHL with 2.64 G/G) and Edmonton (15th in the West [last in the NHL] with 38 points, 27th in the NHL with 2.51 G/G) actually putting pucks in the net. Does anyone see a problem here? A team that is fighting for a playoff spot has a worse offense then teams who are bottom feeders!

The bright spot throughout the season has been their defensive effort. Per usual, the Bruins are ranked in the top ten for goals against per game (2.43), but when you give up more goals than you can score, what happens? You lose!

It's clear that Chiarelli needs to make a move for a scorer. When the rumors came out that Boston was actually making a run at Phaneuf, I wanted to run down to the Garden and shake Chiarelli like a British nanny watching a toddler.

I know I don't speak for Bruins nation, or whatever the hell you want to call yourself, but I believe that Chiarelli doesn't make a move for an Ilya Kovalchuk, Ray Whitney or Martin St. Louis then the fans will be beyond pissed.  People didn't pay overpriced and inflated ticket prices to watch a team struggle to keep its head above water or think about tanking the season for a shot at two good picks.

Chiarelli has come out and stated that there is no way they will trade Toronto's 2010 1st round pick and I'm glad he did. The difference between saying and doing are two totally different things.If Chiarelli trades away Toronto's pick, which at this point would guarentee us no worse than #2 overall, for a rental player then there better be an uproar over it.

Chiarelli knows he has the worst offense in the NHL, but will he do something about it? Brian Burke isn't content with a last place team and a couple big moves that may help Toronto in the future. If a bottom of the barrel team is trying to get better, than what's the excuse for the General Manager of an under performing squad?

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