Would You Have Made The Duchene Trade?

[slamigo]

I posted this link before and the post was deleted. Not sure why?

The Rudderless Ship that is the Ottawa Senators - The Point

Anyway, this article (written back in Sept) accurately sums up all of the data points about the Sens ECF run and why the club should not have gone 'all in' for the Duchene trade. I still believe that if Duchene is resigned that the deal was worth it, but otherwise, this article really makes you wonder what the heck Dorion is doing as GM.

 

[HF Reader]

I posted this link before and the post was deleted. Not sure why?

The Rudderless Ship that is the Ottawa Senators - The Point

Anyway, this article (written back in Sept) accurately sums up all of the data points about the Sens ECF run and why the club should not have gone 'all in' for the Duchene trade. I still believe that if Duchene is resigned that the deal was worth it, but otherwise, this article really makes you wonder what the heck Dorion is doing as GM.

Thanks for this. Dorion and company are worse than I thought if they ignored or, more damning, were unaware of these points. Unless of course they thought Duchene would solve some of the problems and they were planning other trades to address the other deficiencies.
Given the current state I don't think resigning Duchene makes the deal worth it. I'd rather have the first than a signed Duchene.

 

[branch]

Honestly. People cannot even explain in one string of coherent thought just what in the f*** happened here. It will be taught as a case study in sports management classes. It has literally every element. What an opera.

 

[TeamRenzo]

I dont think I would have had the stones to pull off this move however MD is the best player in the trade; so far. I like that PD had it in him to make a move to put the Sens over the top, I can only imagine the stress of making a trade of that magnitude.

 

[Tnuoc Alucard]

Marc Methot.

So what would a 33 year old Marc Methot, who has only played 45 games since he became a Star, and is still injured, get in a trade,that would be better than a 25 year old Cody Ceci, that did not miss a game last season, or this season, at the TDL?

 

[DaveMatthew]

So what would a 33 year old Marc Methot, who has only played 45 games since he became a Star, and is still injured, get in a trade,that would be better than a 25 year old Cody Ceci, that did not miss a game last season, or this season, at the TDL?

Marc Methot would be a pure rental who's big, tough, has good leadership and tons of experience. He can play on any pairing and won't make mistakes. He's exactly what a playoff team is looking for at the trade deadline.

Cody Ceci is expecting a long-term contract at 5+ million, is not tough, is not a leader and is one of the most mistake prone defenseman in the league. He's not a defensive guy, nor is he an offensive guy. He's exactly the opposite of what a playoff contender would want at the trade deadline.

TDL value is not dictated by a player's age or long-term potential. It's dictated by how much demand there is for the player amongst the teams.

Who do you think more playoff teams gearing up for a run would be interested in?

The tough veteran defenseman who'll give you exactly what you expect and has played against the likes of Crosby, Malkin, etc in past playoffs, or the 24 year old defenseman who might still have potential but needs a change of scenery because his development has gone backwards the last 3 seasons?

We got a 3rd round pick back for Ian Cole last year.
I'd guess Methot would return a 2nd.

I don't think Ceci would return a 2nd. I think he'd return another bad contract. He's like the defenseman version of Anthony Duclair. A guy people used to think would be good, but has never lived up to any of the potential. Except Ceci makes over $4 million whereas Duclair's highest AAV was $1.2 million.

A team in a similar spot as us would take on Ceci to see if they can turn him around (Edmonton, Arizona, Philly, etc). But they're not giving us much value back, and a contender certainly isn't trading for him.

 

[Larionov]

So what would a 33 year old Marc Methot, who has only played 45 games since he became a Star, and is still injured, get in a trade,that would be better than a 25 year old Cody Ceci, that did not miss a game last season, or this season, at the TDL?

Thank you - finally a voice of reason on Methot. He was a latter day Kuba, yet another guy who benefited immensely from having 65 as his partner. Everyone loved Methot personally, but keeping him over Ceci would have been lunacy. Both Ceci and Methot need new contracts this summer - I'll bet that Ceci, for all his troubles, gets significantly more than Methot does...

 

[Mathieu]

I probably would still make the deal assuming we didn't had to trade Karlsson and Hoffman for crap.

 

[DaveMatthew]

Thank you - finally a voice of reason on Methot. He was a latter day Kuba, yet another guy who benefited immensely from having 65 as his partner. Everyone loved Methot personally, but keeping him over Ceci would have been lunacy. Both Ceci and Methot need new contracts this summer - I'll bet that Ceci, for all his troubles, gets significantly more than Methot does...

The right move was to trade Ceci before the expansion draft for picks and prospects (when he still had some value), and then use that additional capital to replace him after the draft while keeping Methot. Or doing the same thing with Methot, and keeping Ceci.

A small market, budget team needs to maximize it's assets. It cannot afford to lose one of its top pairing defensemen for nothing.

If the strategy is to Moneyball the NHL, you have to do it right.

Should have traded Erik Karlsson and Kyle Turris right after the 2017 playoffs for young players and prospects if we knew we couldn't sign them. We'd probably be loading up for another run in 2 years with the return. Work in 3-4 year cycles, each core builds up to one big run, and then swap em out.

Would fans be pissed? Sure. But if you want to maximize your chances as a budget team, you need to have the stomach for it.

Instead, we "tried" to re-sign Karlsson in some half-ass PR stunt until his value was at it's lowest. We're doing the same with Duchene and Stone.

Either pony up and keep your stars, or trade them when you hold all the cards.

 

[Micklebot]

Even with last year going completely sideways, the trade could have worked out if everything else that happened hadn't;

If you're starting from the end of last season, we could have seen ourselves going into this year with this as our lineup:

Hoffman-Duchene-Batherson
Tkachuk-White-Stone
Dzingel-Pageau-Ryan
Paajarvi-Smith-Pyatt/Paul

Wolanin-Karlsson
Chabot-Jaros
Lajoie-Ceci

That's not a bad looking lineup at all imo, though it relies on Karlsson/Hoffman issues either not happening or getting resolved.

 

[MakeOttawaGreatAgain]

I think most people agree that Duchene is better than Turris. Duchene is also likely better than a 5+ first round pick. It is pretty debatable if Duchene is better than a potential 1st overall. It is not debatable if Duchene for 1.5 seasons is better than a potential first overall plus Turris :'(

 

[Cosmix]

I dont think I would have had the stones to pull off this move however MD is the best player in the trade; so far. I like that PD had it in him to make a move to put the Sens over the top, I can only imagine the stress of making a trade of that magnitude.

I think Dorion got his imagination wrong. Over the top turned out to be over the cliff!

 

[Boud]

The trade itself isn't the problem, I think if you look at the trade without any context it's a pretty fair deal. You give up Turris, Bowers and what seemed to be a pick in the 10-20 range. Bowers is not a bad prospect, but he's not a great prospect either. He's a guy you like to have in your prospect pool but you aren't afraid to give him up if a deal comes along. Having White, Chlapik and Brown made it pretty easy to let him go. I'll give Dorion some credit here, I never thought Duchene would be this good. I thought he would bring Turris production with potential for more but he has been a true #1C since the second half of last season. He's bringing elite production while playing with complimentary players and he's a driver every time he's on the ice, he works hard and has incredible lower body strength. It's not every day that you can acquire that type of player and in hindsight if things would've went as ''planned" the deal would be, in my mind, a definite win for this franchise and probably all 3 teams involved in the trade.

I was pretty happy about the deal at first because in my mind we didn't give up THAT much on top of Turris (since we could choose which pick we gave up) to make it happen and we had a shot at a guy that had already produced at a PPG clip for a full season. At that time, I would've probably made the deal if I was the GM. That being said, if you make a deal like that you need to be 110% sure that you will be able to re-sign the player and not only that, you also need to be sure that you will be able to sign your other pending UFAs OR that you will be able to get maximum value in a trade for one of them if you can't re-sign all 3 (Duchene, Stone, Karlsson).

I see a lot of people saying that they basically knew we would be giving a top pick when that trade happened but I didn't see it at all. I think most of us thought Karlsson would be staying and also I don't think most of us thought we would be one of the worst teams in the league last season or at least not THAT bad. Had the locker room been how it was during the playoff run, had all the players been on the same page and I think it changes the picture completely. Let's say last season we would've finished out of the playoff picture and picked in the 10-15 range, well then you can easily decide to give that pick to Colorado knowing that you're going full rebuild the year after. The problem here is literally everything went wrong last season and it created so many problems. Even this season, had Karlsson been on the team it would've again changed the picture completely. We would not be in the playoffs (most probably not) but I don't think we'd be nearly as bad as we are right now.

All in all, I think without knowing everything that we know now... I would still make that trade. It's just hard to know exactly what Dorion knew before making that trade.

 

[Rodzilla]

Makes no sense that we made this deal and included our 1st round pick knowing we were trading Karlsson and I fully believe we knew. I have no issue with Duchene, sick player, very skilled, just wish we added him when it was the right time.

One goal away from a cup final we destroyed everything instead of adding because well, we all know why.

 

[HF Reader]

The trade itself isn't the problem, I think if you look at the trade without any context it's a pretty fair deal. You give up Turris, Bowers and what seemed to be a pick in the 10-20 range. Bowers is not a bad prospect, but he's not a great prospect either. He's a guy you like to have in your prospect pool but you aren't afraid to give him up if a deal comes along. Having White, Chlapik and Brown made it pretty easy to let him go. I'll give Dorion some credit here, I never thought Duchene would be this good. I thought he would bring Turris production with potential for more but he has been a true #1C since the second half of last season. He's bringing elite production while playing with complimentary players and he's a driver every time he's on the ice, he works hard and has incredible lower body strength. It's not every day that you can acquire that type of player and in hindsight if things would've went as ''planned" the deal would be, in my mind, a definite win for this franchise and probably all 3 teams involved in the trade.

I was pretty happy about the deal at first because in my mind we didn't give up THAT much on top of Turris (since we could choose which pick we gave up) to make it happen and we had a shot at a guy that had already produced at a PPG clip for a full season. At that time, I would've probably made the deal if I was the GM. That being said, if you make a deal like that you need to be 110% sure that you will be able to re-sign the player and not only that, you also need to be sure that you will be able to sign your other pending UFAs OR that you will be able to get maximum value in a trade for one of them if you can't re-sign all 3 (Duchene, Stone, Karlsson).

I see a lot of people saying that they basically knew we would be giving a top pick when that trade happened but I didn't see it at all. I think most of us thought Karlsson would be staying and also I don't think most of us thought we would be one of the worst teams in the league last season or at least not THAT bad. Had the locker room been how it was during the playoff run, had all the players been on the same page and I think it changes the picture completely. Let's say last season we would've finished out of the playoff picture and picked in the 10-15 range, well then you can easily decide to give that pick to Colorado knowing that you're going full rebuild the year after. The problem here is literally everything went wrong last season and it created so many problems. Even this season, had Karlsson been on the team it would've again changed the picture completely. We would not be in the playoffs (most probably not) but I don't think we'd be nearly as bad as we are right now.

All in all, I think without knowing everything that we know now... I would still make that trade. It's just hard to know exactly what Dorion knew before making that trade.

Everything you've said is reasonable. A big question is "What went wrong after the trade (why the collapse)?" and should Dorion have known the team was not as good as needed to justify the deal at that time in the season. Disagree that you need to be certain that you can resign the player but you better be certain that if you can't resign the player the trade is worth it. Was the hoped for run at the cup in 2017/18 worth the trade if you can't sign him?

 

[Micklebot]

Makes no sense that we made this deal and included our 1st round pick knowing we were trading Karlsson and I fully believe we knew. I have no issue with Duchene, sick player, very skilled, just wish we added him when it was the right time.

One goal away from a cup final we destroyed everything instead of adding because well, we all know why.

This to me is what it comes down to.

If we thought we were going into this year with something similar to the lineup I posted above, the trade could have still worked out.

Going forward with a core of Duchene, Stone, Chabot, Hoffman, Karlsson, Tkachuk and White seems pretty solid. Add some decent prospects in Formenton, Batherson, Brown, Lajoie, Wolanin and Jaros and that's pretty solid short and medium term. Guys like Dzingel and Pageau are also pretty nice pieces.

But, if we new we'd have trouble keeping any or all of Karlsson, Stone, or Duchene then it becomes problematic.

 

[The Lewler]

This to me is what it comes down to.

If we thought we were going into this year with something similar to the lineup I posted above, the trade could have still worked out.

Going forward with a core of Duchene, Stone, Chabot, Hoffman, Karlsson, Tkachuk and White seems pretty solid. Add some decent prospects in Formenton, Batherson, Brown, Lajoie, Wolanin and Jaros and that's pretty solid short and medium term. Guys like Dzingel and Pageau are also pretty nice pieces.

But, if we new we'd have trouble keeping any or all of Karlsson, Stone, or Duchene then it becomes problematic.

Agree.

 

[HF Reader]

This to me is what it comes down to.

If we thought we were going into this year with something similar to the lineup I posted above, the trade could have still worked out.

Going forward with a core of Duchene, Stone, Chabot, Hoffman, Karlsson, Tkachuk and White seems pretty solid. Add some decent prospects in Formenton, Batherson, Brown, Lajoie, Wolanin and Jaros and that's pretty solid short and medium term. Guys like Dzingel and Pageau are also pretty nice pieces.

But, if we new we'd have trouble keeping any or all of Karlsson, Stone, or Duchene then it becomes problematic.

I agree and simply ask "How could they not know?" Can they not budget 12 months or so in advance?

 

[Do Make Say Think]

I agree and simply ask "How could they not know?" Can they not budget 12 months or so in advance?

They didn't consider the possibility that we'd miss the playoffs is my bet.

They banked on playoff revenue and when it didn't happen, we had to blow it up.

 

[Karl Prime]

They didn't consider the possibility that we'd miss the playoffs is my bet.

They banked on playoff revenue and when it didn't happen, we had to blow it up.

Pretty much.

Dorion made the trade thinking that upgrading Turris to Duchene would put the team in a firm position to make the playoffs and they could make another playoff run if they played well enough. What he didn't realize is that a great chunk of the success of 16-17 was due to the outstanding play Karlsson and Anderson, and if they didn't play well (which they didn't), then it was going to go sideways in a hurry. And that doesn't even add in the fact that Duchene didn't produce for the first 20 or so games.

 

[HF Reader]

Pretty much.

Dorion made the trade thinking that upgrading Turris to Duchene would put the team in a firm position to make the playoffs and they could make another playoff run if they played well enough. What he didn't realize is that a great chunk of the success of 16-17 was due to the outstanding play Karlsson and Anderson, and if they didn't play well (which they didn't), then it was going to go sideways in a hurry. And that doesn't even add in the fact that Duchene didn't produce for the first 20 or so games.

They didn't consider the possibility that we'd miss the playoffs is my bet.

They banked on playoff revenue and when it didn't happen, we had to blow it up.

I agree they expected to make the playoffs, which would have softened the loss of the draft pick. What stumps me is even if they had made the playoffs they'd have had trouble signing EK, Stone and Duchene to a combined $25.0 million annually (minimum) within 12-18 months. If I'm right, then at the time of the trade surely they foresaw losing one or more of these players within 18 months. Maybe they didn't care.
Am I overlooking something? Was the expected playoff revenue enough to retain these players?
.

 

[BonkTastic]

Late to this particular party, but...

I can't see any possible line of thought that, when given the benefit of hindsight, you could possibly make the argument that we should have made the Duchene trade.

Obviously, we can say things like "we didn't know it would go off the rails so spectacularly". That's a debate we can have, and there are probably solid arguments on both sides of that fence. That argument, I get.

If we're allowed the benefit of hindsight though, it's almost inexcusable to suggest that we're better off now than we would have been if we hadn't made the trade.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Trying to go all-in when your best player is trying to come back after major surgery and on a zombie foot is just crazy. At the time of the trade, folks were unsure if Erik would ever get back to his old self (he even said his foot would never be the same).

And the problem with the trade now, is the way Duchene plays. He has a tendency to want to do everything himself. He doesn't make his linemates better, and isn't the type of skilled vet you would want leading the kids in a rebuild. If we trade him now, it's as a rental, and if we keep him we're paying a ton of money for a piece that won't maximize our kids' potential.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

 

[BonkTastic]

I think if ANYTHING has become abundantly, overwhelmingly apparent during the Dorion era, it's that he is utterly clueless about how to manage this aspect of the business.

This is a guy who was apparently completely ignorant of a borderline-mutinous locker room until it exploded in his face. The fact that he would operate in such a way that he was so blissfully unaware or ignorant of these potential scenarios that he neglected to plan for them doesn't surprise me in the least.

Dorion's a great scout... but his skill as a hockey man ends there, however. The rest of the job might as well be ancient Greek to him.