And on trade deadline day, the GM of the Winnipeg Jets rested. Like he has every other year.

Only this time, Kevin Cheveldayoff can look back at his handiwork and see that it is good.

But will it be good enough?

For the first time in his four-year tenure, the man upstairs for the Jets has moved heaven and earth — or at least Evander Kane, Zach Bogosian and some spare parts and picks — to try to make his team better through the NHL trade market.

Defenceman Tyler Myers and winger Drew Stafford from Buffalo, Jiri Tlusty from Carolina and, on Sunday, Lee Stempniak from the New York Rangers — the influx of new faces directly onto the roster has been swift and stunning.

Monday, as the clock ticked toward the 2 p.m. deadline for adding some more, Cheveldayoff, juggling phones the way GMs do on a day like this, picked up one of his and called his head coach one last time.

“Are you comfortable with where we’re at?” he asked Paul Maurice.

“He said, ‘Yeah, let’s go,’ ” the GM recalled. “That’s pretty much all I needed to hear.”

So the NHL’s annual spring reset is complete, the contenders bulked up for a playoff run, the pretenders having thrown up the white flag.

And then there are the Buffalo Sabres and Arizona Coyotes, in an embarrassing duel to lose as many games as possible down the stretch in order to get their hands on Connor McDavid. If only they could both lose the lottery, too.

As for those teams actually doing what pro sports franchises are supposed to do — try to win — the Jets have more than held their own in the Western arms race.

Central Division rivals and potential playoff opponents Nashville, Chicago St. Louis and Minnesota have all added players, as did the L.A. Kings, Anaheim and, to a lesser extent, Vancouver in the Pacific.

Calgary will need a miracle to hang in, while San Jose continues to be everybody’s mystery wrapped in an enigma, not all-in or all-out, just there.

Kind of like the Jets of years past.

It’s quite a change for the erstwhile reluctant Cheveldayoff, even surprising some of his longest-tenured players.

“I was a bit (surprised), just how quick it all happened,” Bryan Little said. “We’ve been pretty quiet as far as trades and bringing players in the last couple of years. It seems like two weeks and, boom — we’ve got three or four fresh faces in here, and some pretty big trades.

“It just seems like guys are that much hungrier, like this needs to happen this year. It’s a good feeling.”

Cheveldayoff made the Stempniak deal as the Jets were thumping the defending Stanley Cup champion Kings, 5-2 — at the moment Myers was scoring a highlight-reel goal.

It’s remarkable the new players have fit in so seamlessly, because it doesn’t always work that way.

And that’s one of the reasons the GM put down his phones when he did, Monday.

“At a certain period of time maybe it becomes too much,” he said. “We added a lot of bodies in a very short period of time.”

It’s like a poker game. Occasionally you have to sit out a hand, even if your opponents seem to be growing their chip piles.

“To try and mimic, or say, ‘Because he got him I better go get him,’ that’s a very dangerous thing,” Cheveldayoff said. “The West is as tough as it ever was. Whether teams bulked up or didn’t bulk up, it’s going to be a battle each and every night.”

Of course, the team that bulks up the most isn’t always the one hoisting Lord Stanley’s mug at the end of it all.

The Jets aren’t going to be that team, either, let’s face it.

All they’ve done is improve their already-good chances of being in the tournament. Everything after that is gravy.

But if finally feels like this organization is part of the NHL. I mean, really a part of it.

Four seasons into the new era, the team has been fully engaged, and now so is the GM.

“We’re all excited,” Michael Frolik said. “If you’re going to do something, this is the time.”

Next stop: the playoffs.

paul.friesen@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @friesensunmedia