The thing is... If you look at the ROR trade and the Duchene trade side by side at time of trade, they are very similar deals.
The ROR trade got us:
- Nikita Zadorov
- JT Compher
- Mikhail Grigorenko
- 2015 2nd round pick(#31)
While Duchene returned us:
- Sam Girard
- Shane Bowers
- Vladislav Kamenev
- 2018 1st rounder
- 2018 2nd rounder
- 2019 3rd rounder
- Girard and JTC are equals, both guys at the time of trade were 2nd rounders showing good post draft progress.
- The 2015 2nd and 2018 1st are close, because the 2018 1st from Ottawa was projected to be a late 1st round pick basically in that 25+ range. Ottawa was not projected by anybody to be a bottom feeder team at that point.
- We'll say Grigorenko and Kamenev are roughly equal. Grigs was a former 12th overall pick who was struggling at that point(Not unlike Jost now), while Kam was a former 2nd rounder who had done well in the AHL but hadn't done enough to earn an NHL spot yet. I'd actually argue Grigs to be the more valuable asset here honestly.
After that, you're left with Zadorov, and Bowers + 2nd + 3rd. Z was the 16th pick a year ago at the time of trade with big upside but questions around his consistency and if he would reach that upside. I specifically remember Buffalo fans being adamant that Big Z and Risto were absolutely not being traded in a ROR deal as they were the foundation of that teams D core for years to come. On the flip side, Bowers was the former 26th(?) overall pick in the previous years draft who basically hadn't really started his D+1 year at college yet. He was a guy who was thought to have fairly limited upside for a 1st round pick, but also a pretty high floor to at least be a solid 4C in the NHL. Beyond that, the 2018 2nd and 2019 3rds we were getting were expected to be late draft picks as well as both Nashville and Ottawa were considered cup contending teams at time of trade.
When you compare the two deals. The expected values at the time of trade were very similar. The Avs got extremely lucky in the Duchene trade, that Ottawa completely fell apart almost immediately after that deal. Because if they didn't fall apart, instead of getting Byram ultimately at 4th overall in 2019, likely ended up with a 20s overall pick in 2018 where we likely take a Bernard-Docker or Rasmus Dandin sort of pick instead.
On top of that, had big Z worked out like many thought he would, and was a legit Top 4, Top pairing quality player for us right now(And the perfect Makar partner), all of a sudden that ROR deal would have looked like absolute robbery while the Duchene trade looks pretty meh instead.
Long story short. It's easy to critique the ROR deal and praise the Dutchy trade with the benefits of hindsight. But the reality is any time you're dealing a star player for a mystery box of assets, it really is exactly that, a complete mystery box. Sometimes things can work out exceptionally, other times they don't work out at all. Far more often than not, the mystery box doesn't end up living up to the hype. That's why to me, you're better off keeping the star player and working with them to solve whatever problems are ongoing, rather than trading them away.
