That’s inventive. I’ll go right outside the box and suggest the following:
I admit. We’re pretty damn good this year. But in order for us to truly contend this year, we would have to buy aggressively and that means using up all of our 2nds and many of our 3rds. If we’re going to do that, which will cripple this team, asset wise, for the next couple years, we may as well be prepared to move quality youth.
That means, we should be willing to move any of our quality youth. That means, if the deal is right, be willing to move Pinelli.
Right away everybody is saying “No way it’ll ever happen” etc. etc. etc. But however, it is at least worth considering.
It’s true that 16 year olds like Pinelli don’t get moved often. But I contend that should we be willing to move him, it could bring us the biggest return, league wide, at this deadline.
Of course there will be a chance that we crash and burn in the playoffs and not win a championship and be without Pinelli’s services going forward. There’s also a good chance that over the course of Pinelli’s career here in Kitchener, we may not win a championship either with him in Ranger blue.
So this year is such a hard year where it seems the conference is up for grabs, and we are as good as our recent stretch shows, maybe we do the unprecedented and trade Pinelli and maybe another quality 02 or two and bring in two or three blue-chip veterans.
This type of move could put us far and away the favourite in the west.
Of course, there are no-trade clauses to concern ourselves with but for this exercise, we’ll overlook those for now.
Whoever the number one player available at the deadline is, we zero in on. With Hayton not having been returned to the OHL as of yet, it looks like Akil Thomas might be that guy. Could we put together a deal with Niagara that could put us over the top this year?
To Kitchener:
C-Thomas
RW-Tomasino
To Niagara:
RW-Valade
C-Pinelli
Niagara wouldn’t be getting multiple high picks for these two vets but they would be getting a couple of high end youngsters to play in their top six next year.
Because of the high end future value of Valade and Pinelli, this could be more of a “hockey deal” instead of the player for multiple picks type deal that this league has turned into over the years.
We’d be having our cake and eating it too. We could put ourselves as a happy favourite in the west with the deal of this nature, but still have futures as Tomasino, an 01, could be moved in the off-season along with Vukojovic for solid return.
Our forwardgroup post trade deadline would look like this:
Petizian - Meireles - Hawel
McDonnell - Damiani - Yantsis
Stepien - Thomas - Tomasino
That’s deep. Of course, we could load up the top two lines and go with a third line of Petizian - McDonnell - Stepien. No matter, we’d be very tough to beat.
You make a move for a less expensive second pairing D (LeGuerrier?) and we’re off to the races.
And, because we’re giving up such quality youth, we may be able to bring in these guys without affecting our draft pick cupboard in a major way.
Of course, I don’t see us moving Pinelli, but how’s that for outside the box?
