The Columbus Blue Jackets made the biggest trade of deadline season to date, adding Matt Duchene for their playoff push. And Jarmo Kekalainen did it without giving up top prospect Emil Bemstrom in return to the Ottawa Senators. We grade both general managers on the swap.
Blue Jackets get: C Matt Duchene, D Julius Bergman
Senators get: F Vitaly Abramov, F Jonathan Davidsson, 2019 first-round pick (top-three protected), conditional 2020 first-round pick (if Duchene re-signs with Columbus)
Blue Jackets: A-
It's hard to judge this trade in a vacuum, because it was made as part of a larger decision by GM Jarmo Kekalainen about two pending Columbus free agents, winger Artemi Panarin and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.
What is that decision? Good question. Kekalainen told Aaron Portzline of The Athletic that the Duchene trade doesn't affect the Jackets' call on trading Panarin: If there's a "substantial" offer, they could move him before Monday's trade deadline. There has been talk about the Blue Jackets both subtracting their unrestricted free agents while adding assets at the deadline in order to still be a contender. Trading for Duchene before trading away Panarin would fit that theory.
But it's hard to ignore the obvious fact, of which Kekalainen is no doubt cognizant, that the Blue Jackets are an immeasurably better team with Panarin (24 goals, 34 assists) and Duchene than with just Duchene. I've been Team "Shoot Your Shot" for a while with the Jackets. They traded for Panarin in 2017 with the expressed intent of finally winning in the postseason, as this is a franchise that's only heard rumors of a "second round," having never visited it. That he's likely leaving this summer, and could do so without Columbus getting any compensation, shouldn't change that overarching strategy: This looks like a playoff team, in a winnable division. Shoot your shot.
The price is significant for a rental, but Duchene's a game-changer. He's averaging 1.16 points per game this season, which would be the highest rate of his career. His shooting percentage of 21.4 is fifth in the NHL. He's a center, which is huge for Columbus: The Blue Jackets had 18 points from centers this month, which was tied for 24th in the NHL. With Pierre-Luc Dubois and Duchene in the middle, the Jackets have something that better stacks up against the beasts in the East.
We'll get to the value of these prospects in the next section, but let's focus on the picks.
Duchene was going to cost a first-rounder for the rest of this season, full stop. If the draft happened today, that would be the 21st overall pick. It's top-three lottery protected, which means that it could be kicked to 2020 if the Jackets end up in the lottery and get a top-three pick. If that happens and they re-sign Duchene, that means Ottawa would have their 2021 and 2022 first-rounders.
It's that additional pick that seems like it might be overcompensation. If he signs, it's not the first time we've seen two firsts moving at the trade deadline for an offensive star on a conditional basis -- please recall the New York Rangers' trade for Martin St. Louis in 2014, which ended up sending two firsts to the Tampa Bay Lightning when the Rangers made it to the Stanley Cup Final.
The condition there was on regular-season success. The condition here is on doing something the Jackets could have done this summer without compensation, as Duchene was an unrestricted free agent. So that presents two scenarios:
1. The Blue Jackets don't seriously expect to be able to sign Duchene to a new contract, but that conditional pick is the pot-sweetener that was necessary to win the derby over the other teams chasing him, who might not have offered that.
2. The Blue Jackets do intend to sign him and feel two firsts and two prospects for eight-plus years of Matt Duchene, a player they've coveted, is worth it.
If it's the latter ... the price could end up being steep, depending on the team's fortunes. But it's not like the Senators aren't familiar with that concept, having seen it play out in a disastrous way in their trade for Duchene with Colorado, which could have the top pick in the draft this season thanks to Ottawa cratering.
Overall, we'll give this an A-minus. One pick was mandatory, one pick feels over-compensatory, but the prospects are surprisingly average for a deal like this. And overall, we applaud the Jackets for shooting their shot. Well, until they mess it up by trading Panarin.
(Oh yeah, for the Julius Bergman fans: He was sent over to Ottawa in the Mike Hoffman deal and is now part of the Matt Duchene deal. He's basically an AHL defenseman, but he certainly has a story to tell his grandkids one day.)
Senators: B
Let's start with the prospects. Vitaly Abramov lit up juniors, including 104 points in 66 games for the Gatineau Olympiques in 2016-17. But he's been trying to find his way in the AHL. He can handle the puck well and has good vision but doesn't exactly have explosive speed. At 5-foot-9, he's small, but then it's a smaller player's league these days. Without question, there's offensive upside here if he's developed the correct way, but he's not there yet at 20 years old.
Davidsson has played two pro seasons in Sweden to get him ready to jump right into the NHL mix. He projects as a middle-six forward with some playmaking ability. If nothing else, he's another feather in the drafting cap of Jarmo Kekalainen, who turned the 170th overall pick in 2017 into a key part of one of his franchise's biggest ever trades.
These are two good prospects from a rather shallow pool in Columbus, according to our Chris Peters. Obviously, the Senators would have preferred to land Liam Foudy or Kirill Marchenko or Emil Bemstrom in this deal, but it's not like they were handed a bag of pucks for Duchene, either.
But it's the picks that are interesting. In Columbus, the Senators have traded with a team that's currently one point out of the wild-card spot. Consider that other suitors were teams like Winnipeg and Nashville, who are firmly planted in playoff seeds. Not so with Columbus.
So there are a lot of scenarios on the table for the Senators, all of them pretty good:
If the Jackets make the playoffs, they get a low first-rounder for him.
If the Jackets miss the playoffs, they get a lottery pick for Duchene, unless the pick is in the top three, in which case it would kick over to 2020.
If the Jackets re-sign Duchene, they get an additional first-rounder. If the Jackets' 2019 pick isn't in the top three, these picks would be for 2019 and 2020. If it is, then the picks are in 2020 and 2021.
Please keep in mind that Panarin and Bobrovsky are gone after this season. And there's always a chance that Matt Duchene is actually a hex that causes teams to slip into a rebuild once he arrives (but that's just a theory). So, absolute best-case scenario: The Jackets miss the playoffs, their pick is in the top three, Duchene signs there, and the Senators get two unprotected first-round picks in the post-Bobrovsky/Panarin years of 2020 and 2021.
We'll give the Senators a B here. There's a chance Vitaly Abramov will be viewed as the key asset if his development gets on track. There's also a chance that the Senators pull two draft picks out of this deal if Duchene signs in Columbus, the second of which won't be lottery-protected.
But that's a lot of what-ifs; for now, Senators GM Pierre Dorion flipped one of his two major assets for a first-rounder and two prospects who aren't among the Jackets' finest. That's the reality, and that's why we graded it as such.
Thanks to Vin Masi and Chris Peters for the additional info.