CANADIAN CLUBS AVOID A COSTLY SPLASH
Mortgaging the future for short-term gains not worth it for teams still in building mode
Maybe some general managers thought it was a leap year.
That’s one theory to explain why expected buyers Edmonton, Ottawa, Calgary and Toronto let Wednesday’s 3 p.m. ET NHL trade deadline come and go without making much noise. Maybe they thought February had 29 days, not 28, and the March 1 deadline was actually one day later.
If so, it might have been the best thing to happen — at least for Canadian teams.
Neither Montreal nor Ottawa landed Matt Duchene. Toronto acquired depth forward Eric Fehr and depth defenceman Steve Oleksy, but didn’t get a topfour defenceman. Calgary took a flyer on 22-year-old forward Curtis Lazar, but didn’t get a topsix forward. Edmonton didn’t sell the farm, and while Winnipeg moved pending free agent Drew Stafford, neither the Jets or Canucks held a total fire sale.
It ended up being a day like any other. Ordinary. Boring, even. But it was far from a disaster.
As Brian Burke likes to joke, the annual trade deadline is when GMs make their biggest mistakes.
“It’s like the blue-light counter special at K-Mart,” he told Postmedia at this time a year ago. “It’s 27 carts jostling for one cashier.”
There was a bit of that on the annual “trades teams will immediately regret” day.
While big names like Duchene and Gabriel Landeskog will have to wait until the summer to see where they are playing next year, there was a rush of rental players moving from team to team. But they didn’t exactly turn a pumpkin into a playoff team.
A Panthers team that already has 45-year-old Jaromir Jagr on its roster still increased its average age with the acquisition of 33-year-old Thomas Vanek. Johnny Oduya went back to Chicago for yet another run at the Stanley Cup. The Kings won the bidding war (?) for Jarome Iginla and his eight goals this season.
It was a day of size, sandpaper and grit, of bottom-six forwards and bottom-pair defencemen, of depth guys rather than stars. Duchene and Landeskog are still members of the Avalanche. Radim Vrbata will finish the season with Arizona. Dmitry Kulikov and Evander Kane remain in Buffalo.
It was such a slow news day that TSN was touting the return of anchors Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole as the biggest acquisition.
Montreal was arguably the biggest mover and shaker, picking up fourth-liners Steve Ott, Dwight King and Andreas Martinsen. The trades make the team a lot bigger (King and Martinsen are a combined 449 pounds) and tougher (Ott has 63 penalty minutes), but they might not improve their Stanley Cup odds.
None of the Canadian teams improved their odds, but again, that’s not exactly a bad thing. This year obviously isn’t as bad as it was a year ago when all seven Canadian teams missed the playoffs — five of the seven are in a playoff spot — but it’s not as good as it’s going to get a year or two from now.
The Canadiens are in first place in the Atlantic Division, but they could still use a full season under new head coach Claude Julien. Toronto, sitting on the bubble, needs its kids to get their feet wet before taking that next big step. The same goes for Connor McDavid and the Oilers, who despite their regular season record, are in uncharted territory.
And as well as Calgary and Ottawa have played of late, the bar is such that most fans would be happy if they simply won a playoff round this year.
Anything can happen in the post-season, of course. But it’s nothing you would necessarily bet big on. Which is why most of the moves made Wednesday and in the days leading up to the March 1 deadline ranged from “him?” to “meh.”
These weren’t the types of moves that caught the attention of the Fearsome Five of Washington, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Chicago and San Jose. But they also weren’t the types of moves that a general manager will instantly regret.
There was talk of Montreal or Ottawa trading for a top-line scorer, of the Leafs improving their back end, or of Calgary possibly upgrading its goalie situation. But in the end, the prices were either too high or didn’t offer a noticeable upgrade.
Montreal’s window is not necessarily closing. And while adding someone like Duchene would have made the Canadiens an instant contender, it probably isn’t worth losing defensive prospect Mikhail Sergachev over. The same is true of the Senators, who could have used a topline forward but weren’t going to include world junior stars Thomas Chabot or Colin White in any deal.
And as much as the Leafs or Oilers could have used another piece or two for the stretch drive, they weren’t going to empty the cupboards to speed things up. That’s not the right move at this time.
A year from now, maybe that changes.