It came early this year, the annual reminder that the NHL trade market is not established by some league consensus of what a player is worth, but rather only what one (or two) people are willing to pay.
So the feeling that Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic was going to come down on his sky-high asking price for talented 26-year-old winger Matt Duchene was only a hopeful thought. Instead, Sakic pulled a bit of managing mastery when he found two other teams in the Predators and Senators who rightfully thought they have a chance to win the Stanley Cup this year, with Ottawa holding another highly skilled player in Kyle Turris who was at a contract impasse.
Put those things together and — viola! — Sakic got his return while sending Duchene to Ottawa, who then sent Turris to Nashville.
From Ottawa general manager Pierre Dorion, Sakic received top prospect Shane Bowers, the Senators’ first-round picks in 2017 and 2018, their third-rounder in 2019, and goaltender Andrew “The Hamburgler” Hammond. From Nashville’s David Poile, he got a second-round pick in 2018 and two coveted prospects – 19-year-old defenseman Samuel Girard and 21-year-old winger Vladislav Kamenev.
So Colorado got two first-round picks, a second-round pick, a third-round pick, two highly touted prospects and a minor-league goaltender. And some thought his ask of Travis Hamonic, Mathew Barzal, Ilya Sorokin and a first-rounder from the Islanders early in the summer was a lot?
“Excellent return,” texted one league general manager.
Then Turris went to the Predators and signed a six-year, $36 million extension, a deal made after he said talks with the Senators “weren’t really working out.” Dorion said he felt Turris was not going to budge off the request of seven- or eight-year deal, adding that a six-year deal “was never put on the table. At the same time, we’re OK with that.”
There was some feeling going around the league that Sakic was getting difficult to deal with, but it seems that was only the case for GM’s that didn’t want to meet his asking price. No one was going to pry away a young talent just because Colorado is clearly rebuilding by tearing it down to the foundation. For that matter, what is Gabriel Landeskog or Nathan MacKinnon worth?
see also
Evaluating Rangers Derek Stepan trade after NHL blockbuster
Mika Zibanejad, whose consecutive left-circle faceoff victories against Brandon Dubinsky…
And of course, in a fine bit of serendipity, the Avalanche and the Senators are now in Sweden on Friday to play the first of two games in the league’s “Global Series” games, this being the first regular-season game outside of the North America since the Rangers went to Sweden to open the 2011-12 season. Awkward situation for Duchene, but it might be good for him to jump right in the fire.
“That comes with the territory of this situation, but I’m just trying to be one of the guys in here,” Duchene told NHL.com, who sent two reporters to games overseas. “It’s about fitting into my new environment. I don’t want to stand out.”
That sentiment is understood, but Duchene should definitely want to stand out on the ice. That’s what was so coveted by GM’s around the league, and that’s why Sakic was able to get such a haul in return. It was an impressive bit of dealing, and now it’ll be interesting to see if the Predators and Senators might have overpaid for their respective shots at winning the Cup.
If it seems like it right now, well, that’s just the market.
Torts’ Torrid Tampa Team
Pretty funny reaction from John Tortorella when he reunited with most of his 2004 Stanley Cup-winning Lightning team last weekend in Tampa.
“I thought I had a clean-cut team that wasn’t going out, and oh, my god, was I wrong,” he told reporters. “They were runnin’. I sat there last night [at the reunion] for probably three hours. My video coach was with them, and I looked at him, I said, ‘You didn’t tell me any of this s–t?’ It’s a really good lesson, I think, for our league right now. Not to go on and get in trouble. But our guys ran, they ran hard, they ran hard on the ice and as I’m finding out, they ran hard off the ice. But they did it together. That’s what they say to me is — that’s what helped us win.”
Enough, eh?
I’m not exactly sure who at the NHL thinks these two actors from “On The Bench” are funny — or really, anyone who thinks they’re funny — so enough, already. I mean, NHL Network doesn’t have anything better to put on the air?
The Canadian-Hockey-Player-Lingo thing is funny, but for the best of that, go to Letterkenny. (As a matter of fact, I just got sucked down a rabbit hole of clips on YouTube. . .)
Stay tuned . . .
. . . to the Canadiens, especially in goal. Carey Price seems close to returning from a “minor” lower-body injury that coach Claude Julien said “has zero to do” with the knee injury that made him miss almost all of 2015-16. Yet with middling backup Al Montoya, whom Stan Fischler once dubbed “The Big Cubano,” now Charlie Lindgren has come in and played well in three straight since being called up from the AHL.
Considering Price’s stats before the injury — 3.77 goals-against average and a .877 save percentage — along with the fact that the Habs were 7-9-1, Julien is going to have to stay with the hot hand, no matter who it is.
Parting Shot
Because I think we’ve all already watched the NSFW video of the hockey coach losing his mind, let’s go the opposite direction with one of my personal favorites, a hockey-themed SpongeBob.