I would say the biggest decision that hurt the Wraiths and forever changed Cushing’s career was the tampering of Darren Smallwood. Not only was the decision embarrassing to the team, but the penalty had far-reaching effects. For one, the cap space penalty forced some decently big trades with the Yeti. While these resulted in giving us enough space to pursue everyone we needed, the perception was that we didn’t have much room.
Perhaps even worse was the two game suspension of Mat Akselsen. The two games he missed (at home vs the Arizona Outlaws and at home vs the San Jose SaberCats) were both winnable games, with one of them being a given. Unfortunately, with the Pro Bowl left tackle out, QB Chris Orosz spent the entire games avoiding pass rushers, and both were losses. Had those been wins, the Wraiths would have made the playoffs, where they had a coin flip chance of beating the Hawks on the road, which could have meant their first Ultimus chance.
Naturally, free agents weren’t overly hyped to come play for Yellowknife, which had developed a reputation for being unable to get it done. As a result, the team found itself in rebuild mode, and chose to trade Cushing away.
![[Image: BVsashy.png]](https://i.imgur.com/BVsashy.png)
