OA F Matthew Struthers traded for 1x 2nd, 1x 3rd, 1x 6th. he had 81 points last year.
I can’t see a trade for Hawel, Meireles or Yantsis being that far off. 2nd, 3rd, 4th at best I’d say.
the way it’s going, I’m going to predict they only sell off 1 of the OAs, as well as Riley Damiani & Jacob Ingham (still not completely sold that Ingham will go however).
There’s been an amount of back-and-forth on here as to buying or selling. There were differing views on the value that our OA’s would bring in trade. I made my comparisons to what OA’s of comparable stature brought in return the past couple of years. Others pointed to the needs of contending teams and the glut of high-end OA’s that may be made available as to what would dictate trade value.
So I took a quick look. I looked at teams that I feel are contenders and should be buying at the deadline as well as teams that I feel should be selling.
As firm buyers, I have in the west London, Saginaw, and Flint. In the east I have Peterboro, Ottawa and Sudbury. I have Oshawa selling but in the market for an OA.
As sellers in the west, I have Kitchener, Sault Ste. Marie, Erie, Sarnia and Owen Sound. Guelph and Windsor tweaking at this point. In the east, I have Kingston, Hamilton, Northbay, Niagara, and Mississauga selling.
Of all the buyers across the league, I have Peterborough, Sudbury, and Ottawa as being firmly set with their overage groups. I have London who should look to upgrade two of their OA’s. They should be in the market for one high end OA and should Paul Cotter not return, a second high end OA.
Saginaw I feel should look to improve upon Webb as an overage defenseman. Flint I feel should be able to improve on Phibbs by bringing in a high-end forward. I don’t have Oshawa as an all in buyer. However, they already started selling (Antropov) and likely will Noel as well. But considering how good they are this year, I can see them upgrading on Walker’s OA spot to remain among the top four in the conference.
As far as sellers go, and the high end or better OA’s that they may make available, I have a total of 6 forwards (Josling, MacGregor, Meireles, Yantsis, Hawel, Lodnia) and 4 defensemen (Gordeev, Brahany, Ham and Landry) who may be made available by their teams. Of course, there may be others that aren’t as high end or that I missed.
Based on the needs of the teams that are buying, I think we can determine landing spots for one or two overage defenseman, and two or three overage forwards. (London may go with adding two forwards or a forward and a D).
Therefore, as others have said on here, there is a glut of high end OA’s out there with not enough landing spots for them. Therefore, it will be a buyers market for OA’s and teams will have to decide to either sell them at a drastically reduced rate or hang onto them.
As far as the Rangers go, they’ll have to decide to stand pat (in moving OA’s) or take what they can get for their OA players. As far as I’m concerned, based on our thin bank of draft picks, we cannot afford to stand pat this year and expect to be in good shape for contention going forward.
Looks to me that Stan Butler recognized this and moved Struthers for the best return that he could get avoid getting a worse return for him or not being able to move him at all.
I think that MacKenzie needs to jump on his horse and start making calls to the contending teams and try and get whatever he can for our OA’s. At this point, we should be lucky to get the return for them that NB got for Struthers.
If we only got a 2nd and 3rd each for all three, going forward, I feel we’d be a whole lot further ahead then if we stood pat. For me, a healthier bank of draft picks is better than only maybe winning a round in the playoffs this year.
Moving these players at that return may create a little egg on MacKenzie’s face. Not so much for the value that OA’s will be sold for at this deadline but more so for the fact that he seriously misread the calibre of team that we have this year that resulted in what now looks like an overpayment for Hawel.
For me, in my opinion, with all this in mind, a successful trade deadline this year for me would be moving Damiani and Ingham for good return and hopefully at least two of the OA’s.