Rumor: AVS Proposals/Rumors/Free Agents & Drouin 2016-17 Part XIX

[hughdreamz]

So if by some miracle Sakic could pull off an EJ for Drouin swap, then a Duchene for Hanifin swap, would people be upset?


Hanifin - Barrie
Zadorov - Barbario

This is a pretty sad D unit today. In 2-3 years it could be greatz

 

[McMetal]

So if by some miracle Sakic could pull off an EJ for Drouin swap, then a Duchene for Hanifin swap, would people be upset?


Hanifin - Barrie
Zadorov - Barbario

Kind of. The whole point of trading Duchene is to fill the whole in our top 4. Filling the hole and then immediately replacing it with a new hole really just leaves the D in the exact same (miserable) state.

 

[Avs44]

So if by some miracle Sakic could pull off an EJ for Drouin swap, then a Duchene for Hanifin swap, would people be upset?


Hanifin - Barrie
Zadorov - Barbario

He wouldn't get the second swap, and that would be a really rough year and might not be too good for the young guys. Hanifin at the end of last year graduated to starting to hold down a second pairing spot....briefly, after Hainsey left. Putting him on the top pairing with Barrie would be bad for him, and just as bad for Barrie. And then Zadorov is playing with Barberio? Barberio looked good last year, but not good enough to be a key cog with a 22 year old in a top four role. Long term it might work out, but short term it would be ugly, and I'd have concerns that Zadorov, Hanifin, and Barrie would all struggle under that system. Not to mention the forwards.

 

[frederixx]

It's Barberio and no way he fits in anyone's top 4. At best, he's a 6th and don't let a handful of games fool you.

 

[avsfan09]

It just really blows my mind that everybody is mad at Sakic because our defense still sucks, acting like they could do better, then when the opportunity to get a good top six winger comes along, people start to argue about which defenseman they would move to acquire him. The lack of self-awareness is astounding to me.

Drouin is a top six winger, and not a game changer. I would argue that those are much, much easier to find than top four defensemen in the modern NHL.

Drouin definitely has the ability to change a game.

It shouldn't blow your mind that people are concerned about Ejs injuries and whether he'll contribute to our squad well when we are ready to compete and whether we will be able to sign Barrie to a fair long term contract.

Explain your side without mocking others. I have self awareness. It makes me aware of the fact that we have two current top fours and I think it's fair to say at least one in our prospect pool. That's 3 top fours for the future (depending on Ejs aging) Now say we trade Duchene away and draft one in the next two drafts than I think that could potentially solve our issue with defence. Do we have an elite forward? I honestly believe Drouin can become this. You keep shouting him down as some average second liner that hasn't shown any more. I don't think he's much farther behind than Mackinnon and he's arguably had to deal with a harder situation to come into.
He has elite skill and can make his teammates better.

With all that said I can't imagine he'd be traded for our defenceman haha. So all this is moot.

 

[tigervixxxen]

It all depends on your perspective of being terrible for a couple years so may as well get kids and play them or if you think/hope respectability/competitivess is going to be achievable in the next couple years.

I don't believe Barrie, a Newport client let's not forget, who went through arbitration is going to sign a UFA contract with the Avs as a right handed defenseman who puts up points. I'd prefer planning for that exit before we are left holding the putting it off bag. But that's just me.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

I'm ok with trading Barrie as long as we get a very good D in a Duchene trade but in no way we are in a position to trade EJ at the moment even if the Duchene trade dman is a top pair. Not for a year or two anyway. Once Zads is established as top pair and Bigras makes a huge step along with Meloche then we can start looking at trading EJ. All we talk about is to improve the D and now some are talking about trading our best D to get a FW. I don't get you guys sometimes. Trading Barrie is one thing as he is average at best defensively but EJ? Really?

 

[Nihiliste]

It just really blows my mind that everybody is mad at Sakic because our defense still sucks, acting like they could do better, then when the opportunity to get a good top six winger comes along, people start to argue about which defenseman they would move to acquire him. The lack of self-awareness is astounding to me.

Drouin is a top six winger, and not a game changer. I would argue that those are much, much easier to find than top four defensemen in the modern NHL.

Everything about us sucks, not just our D.

That said, I don't think I would make a trade for Drouin.

 

[McMetal]

Drouin definitely has the ability to change a game.

It shouldn't blow your mind that people are concerned about Ejs injuries and whether he'll contribute to our squad well when we are ready to compete and whether we will be able to sign Barrie to a fair long term contract.

Explain your side without mocking others. I have self awareness. It makes me aware of the fact that we have two current top fours and I think it's fair to say at least one in our prospect pool. That's 3 top fours for the future (depending on Ejs aging) Now say we trade Duchene away and draft one in the next two drafts than I think that could potentially solve our issue with defence. Do we have an elite forward? I honestly believe Drouin can become this. You keep shouting him down as some average second liner that hasn't shown any more. I don't think he's much farther behind than Mackinnon and he's arguably had to deal with a harder situation to come into.
He has elite skill and can make his teammates better.

With all that said I can't imagine he'd be traded for our defenceman haha. So all this is moot.

Well, here's my position: The top 4 defensemen we currently have are far more valuable to the Avs than any defensemen on another team. Given that the prices for top 4 D are so inflated, we are better off keeping the ones we have. Barrie and EJ are not ideal, but they are the only two established top 4 D we have. History has shown that top 4 D are difficult to acquire. Given his contract, EJ's value is limited, and will likely garner an underpayment in return compared to what he gets us by staying. Barrie likely has good value, but we would have to overpay in other assets to acquire his replacement given that we have no internal options right now.

We are already considering sending a 30 goal scorer out to fix the defense, and the offers coming back have been underwhelming. We need to be hoarding our D right now, not sending them away whenever a shiny new forward toy presents itself to our already pretty sunny outlook on that front.

And I guess I just disagree on Drouin's impact. Is he a good player, sure, but I don't see the kind of game-breaking skill that makes me want to move out a far more valuable resource (top 4 D) to acquire him. You can't have everything, and not every good young player needs to come here.

 

[hughdreamz]

I would love EJ for Drouin, but take away EJ from the defense then it is much much worse. Remember how far this team fell when he was out? I would be more inclined to move Barrie+ for Drouin. Then move Duchene for his replacement.

Drouin - Mack - Andrighetto
Rantanen - Jost - Landeskog
1st Pick/UFA - Compher - Greer
Nieto - Soderberg - Comeau

Hanifin() - EJ
Zadorov - Kulikov?
Barberio - Bigras/Meloche/Lindholm

 

[McMetal]

Everything about us sucks, not just our D.

That said, I don't think I would make a trade for Drouin.

Assuming Duchene doesn't stay, our forwards looking ahead are MacKinnon, Rantanen, Landeskog, Jost, and 2017 1st, with Andrighetto, Greer, and Compher as possible complementary pieces. That's not terrible. The big hole in the future is on defense in the top four, unless you want to bank on Meloche and Bigras to work out for sure and drafting a #1 in 2018.

 

[McMetal]

It all depends on your perspective of being terrible for a couple years so may as well get kids and play them or if you think/hope respectability/competitivess is going to be achievable in the next couple years.

I don't believe Barrie, a Newport client let's not forget, who went through arbitration is going to sign a UFA contract with the Avs as a right handed defenseman who puts up points. I'd prefer planning for that exit before we are left holding the putting it off bag. But that's just me.

I don't believe he'll be here past the end of his contract either. But he's not expendable yet. Yes, his trade value will go down as he gets closer to UFA. But you can't discount the value he gives us by playing here until we have internal options to make him tradeable. I'll accept a downgraded return in a year or two in exchange for being able to ice a top 4 in that time.

 

[Foppa2118]

I don't think it's fair to expect a GM in todays market to pull off two high quality top four defenders in one off-season unless the circumstances perfectly align. Clubs are hoarding these guys. Unless you want to insanely overpay in free agency and cripple the club, I suppose.

Trading for two top 4 D men is tough, but we were talking about one trade for a top 4 D man (Hannifin) and one trade for a forward (Drouin).

Edmonton, Tampa, Dallas, and NYI have all helped their team take the next step in development by brining in multiple defenseman from outside the organization. Some of them have done it in the same off season, but the Avs have time to do it over a couple years.

If they can find a solid UFA in the next couple years to add to a Hannifin type D man that they get in return for Duchene, plus EJ, and Zadorov, that's a pretty solid top 4. They even have Bigras and Meloche with top 4 potential, and other guys like Lindholm, Mironov, and Boikov with 3rd pair potential. Plus they may add another 1st to take a legit D prospect this year, or take one with #32.

Not to mention there will be a fair amount of good players available for cheap this year from teams worried about expansion. They may get lucky and find a steal.

Keeping Barrie to start a reset/rebuild, when he only has 3 years left doesn't make a lot of sense IMO. He should be swapped for either a more well rounded D man, or a creative offensive forward to help the top 6.

 

[Avs44]

I'm not going to debate it anymore, but I don't think Hanifin is a realistic option. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think it will happen. If I was Carolina, I wouldn't make that trade. I'm expecting a much lower quality defender back - a second pairing guy with second pairing potential. I think as a result the Avs need to hoard defenders.

 

[McMetal]

I'm not going to debate it anymore, but I don't think Hanifin is a realistic option. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think it will happen. If I was Carolina, I wouldn't make that trade. I'm expecting a much lower quality defender back - a second pairing guy with second pairing potential. I think as a result the Avs need to hoard defenders.

Yeah, everybody who is penciling in Hanifin for Duchene should go read what Canes fans are saying about it on the trade board.

 

[Foppa2118]

I'm not going to debate it anymore, but I don't think Hanifin is a realistic option. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think it will happen. If I was Carolina, I wouldn't make that trade. I'm expecting a much lower quality defender back - a second pairing guy with second pairing potential. I think as a result the Avs need to hoard defenders.

It's not about Hanifin. He was just an example. They are going to trade Duchene for at least one top 4 defenseman. That's the bare minimum of expectations.

 

[Avs44]

It's not about Hanifin. He was just an example. They are going to trade Duchene for at least one top 4 defenseman. That's the bare minimum of expectations.

To me entering next year with Zadorov, EJ, a second pairing Barrie replacement, and then the rest of the current group is not acceptable. The idea of trading Duchene for a defender is to help improve the defense. Acquiring a maybe Barrie level defender back (at best, by the way) and maybe staying the course after trading Barrie is terrible. It is beyond me why some of you are so obsessed with stacking up the forward core, but then entering next year with two established top four defenders (EJ, trade for Duchene), and a young top four defender who isn't established yet (Zadorov) and a whole pile of bottom pairing defenders after trading Barrie is acceptable. And the idea is maybe they get lucky and someone shakes loose from expansion, or maybe they wait another year until 2018, or maybe they draft someone at #32 overall or Meloche eventually turns out?


I mean...put that in perspective. If we follow your idea, you'd have MacKinnon, Drouin, Rantanen, Landeskog as bonafide top six forwards, and then you'd have Jost and the top 3 pick this year as almost guaranteed top six forwards, and then Compher as a potential top six forward, and then Greer as a potential top nine forward...so 4x top six fowards, 2x almost guaranteed top six forwards filling out a full group of six long term, all very young, and Greer and Compher to support that. Basically you'd have your entire top six planned out long term, internally, and an almost guaranteed chance you get six top six forward out of it. That's overkill considering drafting forwards seems much easier than defensman, and considering the state of the defense.


But then on defense you're fine with 1x top pairing defender (EJ), 1x top four defender (from Duchene trade, likely second pairing), 1x young almost guaranteed top four defender (Zadorov), and then a bunch of question marks? Not to mention EJ is 29 years old? Defense is the most important thing in the league. What I'm seeing here is a plan to guarantee a really sweet offense long term, and a really awful defense with a few prayers that it becomes something else. Defense to me is so infinitely more important right now than anything up front, and yet all of these plans take the team right back down the path that helped get us here in the first place. And that's not even addressing all of the cap issues with that forward core that would quickly hit, and how unfeasible it would be to pay Drouin, Rantanen, and Landeskog ~6 million each per season.


Yeah, I get it, just adding a top four defender and keeping Barrie still doesn't mean you get a great defense, but for Gods sake, can for the first time in God knows how long this team ice four players resembling top four defenders to start a season? How much longer is the carousel of bottom pairing garbage playing in top four roles going to go on?


I'm not responding on this subject anymore, but I'll buy into things like 'acquire an expansion casualty defensman on the cheap as well' or 'wait for Bigras and Meloche' when those guys actually prove themselves to be that and when that happens. Not to mention I don't get why we should accept waiting for prospects all the time either - the team needs a proper top four and should have multiple potential top four prospects simultaneously. The team should be icing a top four and they should be looking at prospects to eventually replace EJ over the next couple of years. Not prospects to maybe one day help EJ fill out a top four ~2 years from now when EJ is north of 30. EJ is already the transition defender because they screwed up the first rebuild, he's the guy who is kept around to make sure things don't go to hell even more than they already have. He shouldn't be pencilled in as a long term solution, the team should already be trying to pencil in his long term replacement. That is what the 2018 draft should be for.

 

[McMetal]

Get out of my brain, Avs44.

 

[Foppa2118]

Yeah, I get it, just adding a top four defender and keeping Barrie still doesn't mean you get a great defense, but for Gods sake, can for the first time in God knows how long this team ice four players resembling top four defenders to start a season? How much longer is the carousel of bottom pairing garbage playing in top four roles going to go on?

This is the main point to me. Especially since Barrie is so one dimensional. I think you need a really deep D core with a good top and bottom pair to insulate him with. That's not happening here anytime soon.

The other main points are that Barrie is highly likely to walk in three years. The Avs are highly likely to still be a non contending team in three years. They're also highly likely to miss the playoffs next year.

I've been rallying for them to fix the defense for like a decade, but this is the first off season in a while where it's clear that only long term moves matter. There are zero expectations for the next year or two, so whether or not their defense is good next year is irrelevant to me.

The only reason I see to keep Barrie is to wait for a better trade to use him in.

 

[tigervixxxen]

I don't believe he'll be here past the end of his contract either. But he's not expendable yet. Yes, his trade value will go down as he gets closer to UFA. But you can't discount the value he gives us by playing here until we have internal options to make him tradeable. I'll accept a downgraded return in a year or two in exchange for being able to ice a top 4 in that time.

He's not expendable but I wouldn't pass up a good deal that helps the future because it's a year before things get critical. Supposedly we passed on a Seth Jones for Duchene deal because we weren't ready, a good return on Varly because we weren't ready. IF Drouin for Barrie was on the table (and I don't know that it would be) that's something they have to think about even without a replacement lined up. I'm not someone obsessed with Drouin either. I'd rather be better 2-3 years from now and set up better for the future than slightly better the next year or two. I'm not one who has resigned to being pitiful and playing all kids the next several years either but it's very important to me that within the next 3 years that they are done with this merry go round stuff and are on a real path to somewhere. If it's trading out a medium to short term piece for a long term piece I'd do it.

Ideally they aren't moving Barrie for a forward, I agree that would be a big piece to take out on D in the short term. I'm just talking more about opportunity if it comes is something that should be considered. We can't right all the wrongs in one summer. It takes recognizing them and then developing a long term plan so that we constantly aren't here trying to plug our fingers in a dam trying to hold it together. I too would like a nice stable of defensemen but we are trying to improve on picks, prospects and assets and the only way to increase them is to manage the value we do have properly.

 

[McMetal]

He's not expendable but I wouldn't pass up a good deal that helps the future because it's a year before things get critical. Supposedly we passed on a Seth Jones for Duchene deal because we weren't ready, a good return on Varly because we weren't ready. IF Drouin for Barrie was on the table (and I don't know that it would be) that's something they have to think about even without a replacement lined up. I'm not someone obsessed with Drouin either. I'd rather be better 2-3 years from now and set up better for the future than slightly better the next year or two. I'm not one who has resigned to being pitiful and playing all kids the next several years either but it's very important to me that within the next 3 years that they are done with this merry go round stuff and are on a real path to somewhere. If it's trading out a medium to short term piece for a long term piece I'd do it.

Ideally they aren't moving Barrie for a forward, I agree that would be a big piece to take out on D in the short term. I'm just talking more about opportunity if it comes is something that should be considered. We can't right all the wrongs in one summer. It takes recognizing them and then developing a long term plan so that we constantly aren't here trying to plug our fingers in a dam trying to hold it together. I too would like a nice stable of defensemen but we are trying to improve on picks, prospects and assets and the only way to increase them is to manage the value we do have properly.

Of course, if you get a good deal for Barrie, you have to think about it. My big objection to the Drouin deal in particular is that we'll have too much money tied up in our top forward lines going into the future with no clear picture of what the D will look like. Ideally, for me, you deal Barrie for pure futures in a year or two when your D group looks like it can stand up without him.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

Why does EJ have to go if Duchene is going? Doesn't really make sense to me.

I agree. I think EJ is good character player and we can use him. I wouldn't even think about trading him.

 

[CB Joe]

EJ needs to be there to shelter the young D. You can't just throw a young D into #1 minutes and expect them to grow there. EJ will be the mentor for the next few years for the new D core, and the price the team will pay for those years he helps with developing the next generation will be the last two years of his then-unmovable contract.

There is no reasonable alternative to fill that role that we could acquire (unless you want another Beauchemin/Tyutin out of free agency). The contract will be painful for those last two years as he slides off the top pairing, but it's the price we had to pay to get him to re-sign with us. This team with EJ is still much better than it is without him both present and future.

You dont need EJ to be a mentor. Ideally this is where good coaching comes in. You can get any experienced defenseman out of free agency to do mentoring. Even Beauchemin can do that. If you're going to argue that other defenseman aren't as good as EJ youre right, but the best players don't always make the best mentors and coaches.

EJ's trade value falls exponentially as time goes on. The time to move him would be soon if you want any value for him. It would be a shame to waste such a valuable trading asset.

Yes the team is better in the next few years with EJ, but i'm tired of the Avs being half in/half out of a rebuild. Just pick a direction and go all in. They will never get anywhere doing what they are currently doing.

 

[Miri]

What´s this Drouin talk...did i miss any new rumors?

 

[Tommy Shelby]

The fascination with Drouin seems to be way stronger on here than it is on the Bolts board