Would You Have Made The Duchene Trade?

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

Duchene 85 points in last 82 games is really something. Im really sure he and Batherson are gonna take off together but the idea of Duchene regressing terrrrrrrrrriffffiesssssss me bro.



In hind-sight no. Turris sucks. He'll score 2-3 really nice timely goals but do jack **** rest of the way. Who remembers the playoff run. He was as non-existent as Stone except for a couple goals. Zibanejad, sure; still young and has shown some fight in the playoffs at least.

I see that side of it too, he's not a world beater by any means, but here he could be expected to be a 20-25g, 50-55 point center that's reasonably affordable for a broke ass team like ours.

It's the affordable part I'm going after here, since the player we upgraded to we obviously can't afford. What Duchene gets in FA could be close to what Turris and Zbad make combined. Either sign Turris or trade Turris for futures/another cheapish player, but don't go trading for players you don't have a hope in hell of signing. The Senators need to accept the type of players they can afford, and that's guys like Turris and Zbad, because not only is their AAV reasonable, they don't necessarily have the clout to demand full trade protection or significant bonus money. We've crippled ourselves by trying to upgrade.

 

[coladin]

They said they decided to trade Karlsson in February (which coincides with Dorions Barbados adventure and extension).

Not sure how we can use trying to appease the Karlsson camp excuse when they knew he was being traded months before Hoffmans deal. That's what I had assumed was going on, but then saying they decided in February to trade him strikes that out.

Zibanejad trade if you work out everything turns into Zib + 33rd overall for 26th + 48th + Gus + 3rd.
With that 33rd we could have drafted Tyconik if we pleased, or anyone we had ranked above him. Very possible JBD is there as well, as he was ranked lower than that pick.

People believe that around here even after Dorion clarified that statement at the time. It doesn't make any sense to trade Hoffman if that were the case.

I just never liked Zibanejad, so I will always like that trade!

 

[HSF]

Stone is more like to regress faster than Duchene. Duchene is high IQ but most of all has really good skating

 

[HSF]

People believe that around here even after Dorion clarified that statement at the time. It doesn't make any sense to trade Hoffman if that were the case.

I just never liked Zibanejad, so I will always like that trade!

No he changed his statement after the instant backlash to appease season ticket holders

 

[coladin]

If you look in the moment, you cannot say that the Zibanejad for Brassard trade was good because 3 years later, we flipped Brassard for JBD and Gustavsson. You have to look at it as Zibanejad for Brassard.

The problem I have, and had, with both the Brassard and Duchene deals is that with both of them, PD did not address a roster need. All he did was upgrade a position that we were already relatively strong in, for a premium, while leaving other holes on the roster.

Let's take a look at the context of the Duchene trade, at the time.

Kyle Turris was coming off a season where he scored 27 goals, 55 points alongside 10 points in 19 playoff games. Was he a top end #1 center? No. But he was a good 1a with Brassard as a 1b. At the time, we also had a top 4 defense core than included Johnny Oduya, Cody Ceci and Dion Phaneuf.

If we were really looking to contend and "go for it", did our need for an upgrade at center outweigh our need for a top 4 defenseman? Absolutely not. And yet, Dorion spent so much capital to upgrade a position that didn't have a major hole.

Would we have had a better chance of making the playoffs and going on a run had we just kept Turris and traded our 1st + 3rd + Shane Bowers for a defenseman like Sami Vatanen?

Turris has been mediocre since the trade, and on the 4th line in his dreadful playoff performance. You can never have enough scoring and I appreciated ,then, getting a true No.1 center . Major upgrade. Injuries and Karlsson playing through rehab hurt the team, and goaltending. It just fell apart. And I think Dorion went heavy with the prospect of Harpur and Wideman taking another step...and flopped badly.

As I responded earlier, Turris and Zibanejad were not good enough for me.

 

[coladin]

No he changed his statement after the instant backlash to appease season ticket holders

No, he literally corrected it minutes after when a reporter followed up.

 

[HSF]

No, he literally corrected it minutes after when a reporter followed up.

so when exactly did they decide to move karlsson? It surely was before the trade deadline year

 

[pzeeman]

so when exactly did they decide to move karlsson? It surely was before the trade deadline year

My belief, with absolutely zero evidence to back it up?

They considered, and even explored it at the 2018 TDL, with the intent of trying to keep him.
It wasn't until August that they committed themselves to it.

 

[HSF]

My belief, with absolutely zero evidence to back it up?

They considered, and even explored it at the 2018 TDL, with the intent of trying to keep him.
It wasn't until August that they committed themselves to it.

this is absolutely not correct lol

Wasn't he almost traded leading up to the draft?

Dorion mentioned it was discussed when he met with Melnyk in Barbados thats not a slip up thats something hard to slip up if it was never discussed.

It was also well reported by trusted insiders that the sens were shopping karl once the summer hit

 

[pzeeman]

this is absolutely not correct lol

Wasn't he almost traded leading up to the draft?

Dorion mentioned it was discussed when he met with Melnyk in Barbados thats not a slip up thats something hard to slip up if it was never discussed.

It was also well reported by trusted insiders that the sens were shopping karl once the summer hit

Pre-August - "If someone guts their own team, we'll do it, but we'd prefer to keep him"
Post-August - "We can't keep him. Just take the best that's out there."

Works for me, addresses rumors and management statements without calling anyone a liar.

But this is way off topic for this thread. I'm dropping it here.

 

[DaveMatthew]

Turris has been mediocre since the trade, and on the 4th line in his dreadful playoff performance. You can never have enough scoring and I appreciated ,then, getting a true No.1 center . Major upgrade. Injuries and Karlsson playing through rehab hurt the team, and goaltending. It just fell apart. And I think Dorion went heavy with the prospect of Harpur and Wideman taking another step...and flopped badly.

As I responded earlier, Turris and Zibanejad were not good enough for me.

The question is though, was swapping out Turris for Duchene worth the trade capital we spent when considering the other holes we had on the roster.

Yeah Turris has been disappointing since the mid-point of last year, but at the time, he had 9 points in 11 games for us. Meanwhile, Karlsson was being rushed back, Methot was gone, and we had given up 47 goals in our first 14 games with a cobbled together d-core. We had scored 51, so offense wasn't a problem.

It just never made much sense, even if the plan was to make one final run with Karlsson on a cheap contract.

Agreed that Duchene is a big upgrade, but not an upgrade that was going to solve the problems the team had. Dorion paid a big price to further improve a strength, while doing nothing about our weaknesses.

 

[HSF]

Pre-August - "If someone guts their own team, we'll do it, but we'd prefer to keep him"
Post-August - "We can't keep him. Just take the best that's out there."

Works for me, addresses rumors and management statements without calling anyone a liar.

But this is way off topic for this thread. I'm dropping it here.

Lets say this is true which i completely disagree with.

The team went from going all in on a multi million dollar asset in Duchene (in his prime) and by selling future picks and prospects to full our rebuild (cause that is what trading your franchise generational player is who is also in his prime) in a span of less than a year.

That is absolutely atrocious management and something that would get anyone fired (outside of Dorion of course).

and now we sit here at the absolute last moments while his value dwindles looking to trade said asset LMAO

 

[bert]

Lets say this is true which i completely disagree with.

The team went from going all in on a multi million dollar asset in Duchene (in his prime) and by selling future picks and prospects to full our rebuild (cause that is what trading your franchise generational player is who is also in his prime) in a span of less than a year.

That is absolutely atrocious management and something that would get anyone fired (outside of Dorion of course).

and now we sit here at the absolute last moments while his value dwindles looking to trade said asset LMAO

I think its pretty obvious now that the plan the entire time was to win the cup last year so they made the push for Duchene because they knew they couldnt afford to keep anyone. The plan the entire time was probably to lose Karlsson its pretty obvious with the way the organization has been run at this point. Last ditch effort to make everyone happy because if they did win the cup then people could deal with losing everyone alot better than if they didnt. Obviously a terrible strategy but falls in line with everything else that has happened.

 

[HF Reader]

so when exactly did they decide to move karlsson? It surely was before the trade deadline year

I don't know when they 100% committed to trading EK but I have to think that in the fall of 2017 they were fairly certain EK's pending salary demands could not be met. Virtually 100% they could not be met if they also had visions of signing Duchene and/or Stone (and Ceci).
If Ryan, Smith, Gaborik, Phaneuf and MacArthur weren't sucking up so much money then maybe.
But I know nothing of Melnyk's finances so am just guessing.

 

[HF Reader]

I think its pretty obvious now that the plan the entire time was to win the cup last year so they made the push for Duchene because they knew they couldnt afford to keep anyone. The plan the entire time was probably to lose Karlsson its pretty obvious with the way the organization has been run at this point. Last ditch effort to make everyone happy because if they did win the cup then people could deal with losing everyone alot better than if they didnt. Obviously a terrible strategy but falls in line with everything else that has happened.

This is exactly how I've seen it. Begin the rebuild in 2019 after trading everyone who matters. 2017/2018 was their last shot with EK

 

[HF Reader]

Lets say this is true which i completely disagree with.

The team went from going all in on a multi million dollar asset in Duchene (in his prime) and by selling future picks and prospects to full our rebuild (cause that is what trading your franchise generational player is who is also in his prime) in a span of less than a year.

That is absolutely atrocious management and something that would get anyone fired (outside of Dorion of course).

and now we sit here at the absolute last moments while his value dwindles looking to trade said asset LMAO

It seems atrocious but if the plan was to win in 2017/18 and then begin the rebuild in 2019 the major question is whether Dorion accurately assessed the team's chances of winning in 2017/18. A second question is whether the trade would have been worth it even had the Senators won the cup.

Was that plan realistic? What other trades was he contemplating when he made the Duchene deal (Logan Brown for a defenceman for example?)?

Some argue that it was realistic, pointing to the reasonable start to the season and the previous playoff run.
Others argue that Dorion should have known better (the article with the statistics pointing out how bad the team truly was, the playoff run was really an illusion of how good they were, etc.).

An inconsistency is that he protected the pick. If he was so sure of success why bother? I suspect he protected the pick to cover himself if there were any injuries to scuttle the plan.

 

[BondraTime]

Dorion was given an extension for 3 years after his Barbados trip in Jan/Feb. This was after he and Melnyk outlined "the plan". Does anyone really want to argue with me that this plan was to keep Karlsson? That him being traded just prior to camp was a coincidence? It was clearly outlined that they were moving him, Dorion and Melnyk were clearly both aware and on the same terms, resulting in a 3 year extension.

We had to force a trade for Karlsson because we were not to have him on the roster for training camp. Do people think this was sprung on Dorion or something? It's clear that was outlined to be happening, at the latest, in Barbados.

I can't see how anyone can be blind to the fact management knew we were not keeping Karlsson way back in February. He was the biggest story at the trade deadline for a reason.

 

[JD1]

this is absolutely not correct lol

Wasn't he almost traded leading up to the draft?

Dorion mentioned it was discussed when he met with Melnyk in Barbados thats not a slip up thats something hard to slip up if it was never discussed.

It was also well reported by trusted insiders that the sens were shopping karl once the summer hit

Once the summer meaning after they made an offer and heard nothing back?

I think they knew ek would provide the biggest return but they rolled the dice on trying to get him signed. That didn't work out and then they ramped up needing to move him

 

[JD1]

The question is though, was swapping out Turris for Duchene worth the trade capital we spent when considering the other holes we had on the roster.

Yeah Turris has been disappointing since the mid-point of last year, but at the time, he had 9 points in 11 games for us. Meanwhile, Karlsson was being rushed back, Methot was gone, and we had given up 47 goals in our first 14 games with a cobbled together d-core. We had scored 51, so offense wasn't a problem.

It just never made much sense, even if the plan was to make one final run with Karlsson on a cheap contract.

Agreed that Duchene is a big upgrade, but not an upgrade that was going to solve the problems the team had. Dorion paid a big price to further improve a strength, while doing nothing about our weaknesses.

I find it amazing hOw the stories keep changing to fit viewpoints. At one point many said that Duchene was a modest upgrade at best. It's pretty evident he's more than a modest upgrade so the story changes to something else

 

[JD1]

I think its pretty obvious now that the plan the entire time was to win the cup last year so they made the push for Duchene because they knew they couldnt afford to keep anyone. The plan the entire time was probably to lose Karlsson its pretty obvious with the way the organization has been run at this point. Last ditch effort to make everyone happy because if they did win the cup then people could deal with losing everyone alot better than if they didnt. Obviously a terrible strategy but falls in line with everything else that has happened.

Ya i don't think you're far off on this. They rolled the dice. The team crapped. Here we are.

 

[DaveMatthew]

I find it amazing hOw the stories keep changing to fit viewpoints. At one point many said that Duchene was a modest upgrade at best. It's pretty evident he's more than a modest upgrade so the story changes to something else

Everyone knows that Duchene was a big upgrade.

The question is, was it worth paying so much to upgrade a position that wasn't a big problem and ignoring the holes this team had, specifically on defense. Based on results, clearly no.

We have the same problem as we did in the 14 games before acquiring Duchene. We can score but can't defend. So why did we improve our scoring?

Duchene is having the best year of his career, by far, and we're still the worst team in the league.

 

[DaveMatthew]

Ya i don't think you're far off on this. They rolled the dice. The team crapped. Here we are.

So Dorion went all-in and acquired Matt Duchene when three of his top 4 defensemen last year were Johnny Oduya, Cody Ceci and Dion Phaneuf?

Wouldn't it have been smarter, if we were going for it, to use the 1st + 3rd + Bowers to acquire a top 4 defenseman, filling the big hole Methot left, instead of trading it to improve our offense, which wasn't a problem?

Before we acquired Duchene, we were one of the highest scoring teams in the league. We had also allowed the most goals.

Why didn't we address that?

 

[Micklebot]

I find it amazing hOw the stories keep changing to fit viewpoints. At one point many said that Duchene was a modest upgrade at best. It's pretty evident he's more than a modest upgrade so the story changes to something else

Duchene has drastically outperformed peoples (read fans here) expectations, and to his credit, Dorion likely saw that potential. We paid a price that makes sense for how he performed, but at a time where you could still argue it wasn't appropriate (could we afford to spend to the cap, because that's pretty much what it was going to take to re-sign all of Stone Karlsson and Stone)

I thought Duchene would only be a moderate upgrade, he proved me wrong, so I changed my opinion with the benefit of hindsight. I still don't think the trade was a smart move unless we were willing to spend to the cap afterwards, which I find unlikely given how things have played out, and I thought we paid too much at the time which with the benefit of hindsight, I now think the return was reasonable had we not tanked in the standings both this year and last.

People can both be rationally upset with the trade now, and then, even when changing opinions with the benefit of hindsight.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

On paper, it was a terrible trade, and a gross overpayment.

I would have made it at the time, because while I didn't think we were a contender, I would have projected us to at worst be in the mix for a playoff spot (a few points out/a few points in). With our 68 million dollar budget, at the time it was evident that if we wanted to have a shot at fitting a Karlsson extension in, paying Turris 6-7 million beyond 2019 would have been an issue.

My logic would have been, we're not moving Turris at the deadline if we're in the running for a playoff spot, so we get an upgrade on Turris for the 17-18 season, and then if things go sideways, we could recoup our net cost of Bowers+mid or bubble 1st+3rd next season by trading Duchene at the deadline.

Keep in mind, I had no insight to how toxic our room supposedly was (going off what management has said). So if that is true, either management was completely oblivious to how bad their own room was until after the trade, or they made this trade knowing things were bad. Neither is a good look for management. I would not have done this trade if I didn't believe in the room.

With hindsight, I obviously would not make the trade. It's going to go down as one of the worst trades in NHL history. The trade will set our franchise back 5 years. That could be changed if we somehow luck into getting an elite player back in the return, or if we luck into an elite player with the inevitable mid to late 1st we get in the return, but that's unlikely.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

If we hadn't made the trade and then decided we needed to rebuild, we could be heading into 2019-20 with:

Tkachuk-Cozens/Hughes-Stone
Hoffman-White-Batherson
Dzingel-JGP-Ryan
Smith-Paul-Prospect
Kamenev

Girard-EK
Chabot-Lajoie
Jaros-Boro
Wolanin

Not to mention having an extra couple of 2nds and 3rds

Need to trade Hoff and Dzingel? There's a lot of extra futures, none of this Boedker ****.

Nice lineup .. I'd put Wolanin in with Jaros and make Boro the 7th .. That team would contend sooner than later