First, thanks to Doug for doing my draft for me. Merci monsieur!
The following is a comment I wrote for the post and comments below, but it was too large and had to be posted on its own.
Here's what I think we are missing about the Phaneuf deal;
- The organization have a good read on Dion being the only pro team he has ever played for, and his Jr coach was Brent Sutter. The Flames know now what he is and could be. Sutter thinks the Leafs are getting a heck of a hockey player - and I think they are.
The truth though, is he is more Ed Jovanovski than Denis Potvin. He is never going to have more than average hockey sense, and he is unlikely going to iron out his defensive defficiencies. At best the Leafs have added the next Brian McCabe. Which is to say pretty good, but below the class of guys like Scott Stevens or Rob Blake that Phaneuf was initially projected to be.
Now factor in his considerable salary. He is being paid like a franchise defenseman despite it being questionable at best if he actually is one.
Rumors of him being a locker room cancer may have been the nail in the coffin.
So we have; an overpriced defenseman struggling to be the fourth best defenseman on his team (Bouwmeester, Regehr and Giordano were all ahead of him), and several glaring needs on a team that just emerged from a prolonged scoring drought that exposed the lack of weapons up front, and poor team off-ice and on-ice chemistry.
Here's the rest of what we give up;
- Frederik Sjostrom. Scored one very pretty goal for the Flames, but is a still a marginal NHL player.
- Keith Aulie. 6'6" behemoths without offense aren't great, but they aren't bad either. He's duplicated/replaceable by others in the organization. Still a project and not NHL ready (though maybe not for the Leafs).
The return:
- Nik Hagman, a speedy, gritty 20 goal scorer who got his notches without Kessel, signed for a very reasonable 3 years.
He's a lower tier top six forward or a very good third line winger.
- Matt Stajan, 25.
The Leafs played him like a 1st line center, but the reality is more that of a utility forward that can bounce between the 2nd and 3rd lines providing offensive juice and responsible play. Useful playmaker in the Kelly Kisio/Martin Straka/Stu Barnes mold. If they can sign him to a reasonable deal he's the teams next Craig Conroy.
- Ian White, 25
Here's where I think the meat of the trade is. White is an undersized puck mover with powerplay ability. Also, he's a gamer. White got better and better even when the team was bailing around him. Comfortably fits into our top four and the Flames will be auditioning him for a longer term contract.
- Jamal Mayers. A bottom six forward with some jam. Rumored to possess untapped offensive ability. Useful depth player, and will be cheap if he clicks.
Personally I think the return is still light for Phaneuf, except that with the future cap space the Flames get as a result (Patrick Sharp?). This cap space becomes the 'player to be named later' that the Flames can now sign in the off-season.
Phaneuf/Jokinen might have rented you Kovalchuk - but then what? Is anybody under the delusion that Kovalchuk wants to stay in Calgary when his contract runs out? I see him bolting for somewhere more cosmopolitan and with a larger Russian community. And it wouldn't hurt if there was lots of money. Like, say, in New York. Or Russia.
Would adding Kovalchuk have addressed any of the Flames needs? Certainly not in the long term, and potentially not in the short term. Which leaves you with not much other a large amount of money to spend when the year is up.
As for the rumored New York trade;
- Jokinen is a rental for whoever gets him as his contract is running out. I think it is fair to say Calgary was not going to resign him when it runs out. Factor in that he has been anything but dominant for Calgary, and its not like his stock is high either. I was hoping for a 2nd rnd draft pick, and don't particularly like Higgins or Kotalik - though both are fast larger sized bodies who could net 20 if things go right - Rene Bourque/Curtis Glencross types. Prust is a dime a dozen fringe guy salary filler.
I really really liked the Jokinen deal when it went down, but it clearly hasn't worked out. Is the return awesome? No.
Time will tell if either of these deals has long term implications, positively or negatively, but on their face, I don't hate either deal, but nor do I really love either of them.
3 comments:
Well argued Cam.
No problem drafting for you Cam, unless I selected any problems for you - in which case, sorry.
As for Phaneuf, a year ago no one doubted that he was a stud d-man who would be on Canada's Olympic team.
Last year 20g, 49pts; the previous season 17g, 50pts; the year before that 17g, 60pts. all while giving you a physical presence on the blueline.
He comes with his own adjective: "Phaneufed".
IF he regresses and becomes McCabe, then Calgary can claim victory for getting a bunch of glorified AHLers for him but at 24 years of age you are not even in the prime years for a defenseman.
This has long-term ugly written all over it Cam and the return does not equal the asset surrendered, not by a long shot. Bad trade, Oiler bad.
"This has long-term ugly written all over it Cam and the return does not equal the asset surrendered, not by a long shot. Bad trade, Oiler bad."
- Doug
Let me put it this way; I'm surprised at the package they took for Phaneuf, but I'm not surprised that Phaneuf was moved.
I think the writing was on the wall from the signing of Bouwmeester, a defenseman who is; bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, and capable of logging heavy minutes in all capacities.
There are two things Phaneuf brings to the table that J-Bo doesn't; freight train hits, and a bomb of a point shot. I love the parts of Phaneuf's game, the aggression, the intimidation, the shot. But in the end Phaneuf is clearly less than the sum of his parts.
The dissapointment for me is that I thought a Phaneuf/Carter swap made sense on many levels. The Flyers are not going to be able to dodge the bullet on Briere's salary and Carter's age, upside, and productivity make it a good match in a trade for Phaneuf.
Both teams swap from areas of strength to fill areas of weakness.
To me the Dion deal is an admission by Flames mgt that they would rather try to fix a bunch of problems at once (team depth, playmaking center, energy line guy, top 4 defenseman who could move the puck and replace some of Dion's offense, and 25 goal winger with grit), rather than try to get a one for one swap of Dion for Offensive forward.
It's the Jokinen deal that makes things very interesting since it would create a situation where the team would have way too many forwards and clearly indicate that the Flames would have yet another deal in the fire (Kovalchuk?) to clear the situation up.
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