The Boston Bruins acquired Ondrej Kase from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for veteran David Backes, a 2020 first-round pick and prospect Axel Anderson. Kase fills a role as two-way winger for Boston, while Backes will hope to re-establish himself as an NHL presence with a new team. How did each GM do in the swap?
Bruins get: F Ondrej Kase
Ducks get: F David Backes, D Axel Andersson, 2020 first-round pick
Boston Bruins: A-
In the Eastern Conference, there are two constants at trade deadline. The Washington Capitals are going to trade for a defenseman (see: Kevin Shattenkirk, Michal Kempny, Nick Jensen, Brenden Dillon) and the Boston Bruins are going to trade for help on the wing. Since 2016, GM Don Sweeney has made deadline moves for Lee Stempniak, Drew Stafford, Rick Nash, Tommy Wingels, Charlie Coyle and Marcus Johansson. Now we can add Kase to that list.
In Kase, they get one of the NHL's most lauded hidden gems, which sounds oxymoronic, but please bear with us. The 24-year-old Czech winger has 96 points (43 goals, 53 assists) in 198 games with the Ducks. Much of that offense has been generated without playing on the wing of either Ryan Getzlaf or Adam Henrique in the past two seasons -- while he had shown chemistry with Henrique after he arrived in Anaheim, Kase only played 304 minutes with him at 5-on-5 from 2018-19 to 2019-20.
Kase has the best goals scored above average per 60 minutes (0.524) of any Ducks player over the past two seasons, according to Evolving Hockey. He's a forward who drives play -- the Ducks get 55.47% of the shot attempts with him on the ice at 5-on-5 -- and has a knack for drawing penalties, averaging 1.1 per 60 minutes at even strength.
All of this sounds great, right? But let's go back to his career stats: that's 198 games over four seasons, or an average of 49.7 games per season over his first three NHL campaigns. He's played in 49 of the Ducks' 60 games in 2019-20, once again missing time to injury. There's no question that at $2.6 million average annual value, with a contract that runs through 2021 before restricted free agency status, Kase is a fantastic bargain; but given his health history, it's not the most solid investment. In fact, he's currently on injured reserve retroactive to Feb. 7, but was practicing with the Ducks prior to the trade.
Speaking of cap space, there's obviously another component here for Boston: finding a taker for Backes. He's signed through 2020-21, and had been jettisoned to the AHL after tallying three points in 16 games with Boston. They were either going to move him or (more likely) buy him out after this season. They ended up retaining $1.5 million of his contract (25%) and sent him back to the Western Conference. Other teams looking to dump salary have attached a first-round pick to that contract in order to move them. Not many of them have managed to pull a player like Kase out of the totality of the trade. So this was a nice piece of a business for the Bruins.
Sweeney hasn't made many missteps. Signing Backes to a five-year, $30-million free-agent contract was certainly one of them. At a minimum, the Bruins hoped to get three solid seasons out of him. Instead, they got two average-at-best ones and two unsatisfactory ones, all of them colored in some way by his unfortunate history with concussions. (That both Backes and Kase have struggling through concussions makes this a very "peak NHL" trade.) But kudos to Sweeney for finding a trade partner that, apparently, intends to play Backes at the NHL level.
Anaheim Ducks: C-
Let's start with the prospect coming the other way, defenseman Axel Andersson. From ESPN prospects analyst Chris Peters:
"Axel Andersson is kind of a midrange prospect, and makes the first-round pick the real value piece of the trade. Andersson is a right-handed shooting defenseman who can defend decently well, but there's no one standout trait for him. Currently with the QMJHL's Moncton Wildcats, one of the best teams in junior hockey this year, he's been out with injury for the last little while. He's still pretty young, but he did not make my top 10 for the Bruins' system over the summer, and that's a pretty shallow prospect system."
Obviously, the hope here for Anaheim is that the 20-year-old defenseman develops once the Ducks get him in their system. And if nothing else, Anaheim has produced more than a few NHL defensemen from that system.
There's also a legacy component in getting a low first-rounder from Boston. The Ducks have done well when picking near the bottom of the first 31 picks. Brayden Tracey (No. 29 last year) projects to be an NHL contributor. Sam Steel was a steal at No. 30 in 2016. Jacob Larsson (No. 27) and Shea Theodore (No. 26) were in the lower third of the first round. The draft is always a gamble, but the Ducks have hit more than they've missed on late first-rounders.
But that's a lot of "what if?" instead of "what is." This trade tells us that GM Bob Murray and coach Dallas Eakins did not see a fit going forward with Kase. Murray was ready to trade him earlier this season for Carolina defenseman Justin Faulk, before Faulk voided it with a no-trade clause. Eakins increased his ice time from last season (16:47), but didn't put Kase in a top-six role. With the clock ticking to RFA status in summer 2021, they decided to Kase, er, cash in.
That may end up being a mistake if Kase can find a modicum of health, because at age 24, he has tremendous upside. Enough where a middling prospect, $3.425 million in cap space this season (and possibly next) for 35-year-old David Backes, and a low first-rounder may not ultimately balance the equation.