Sens trade Zibanejad for Brassard

[matchesmalone]

I've pretty much talked myself off the ledge on this one. Mika was a fan favourite and you can't deny that he had huge offensive upside. But I do like that:

-Ottawa could have more Hoffman money set aside now
-Ottawa has a left handed centre to play with Ryan or Stone
-Ottawa has a centre who can rock the man advantage
-Brassard is a player in his prime with a manageable contract
-Brassard can play effectively in all phases and is much more complete that Mika

All i'm hearing from the Senators fanbase is "This team is wasting the prime years of its core! When is management gonna DOOOOO something?!"
So management goes out and gets Ryan and Phaneuf and Brassard.
And the fanbase says "This team is mortgaging the future! What were they thiiinkiiing?"

A) This team cannot bring in free agents without overpaying. No one wants to play in Canada. Period. Name one UFA who took a team-friendly deal to play in Canada this year. No one.
B) This team has to give up picks and prospects. This team can't eat salary so it has no other leverage. They parted with the guy who was a contract nightmare waiting to happen.*
C) This team has enough firepower and it needs more two-way players. Bona fide NHL players aren't cheap and I'd like to know what other assets the team had that other GMs actually want.

*again, I liked Mika and I know a lot of fans felt the same way but his play wasn't in line with the expectations of the organization and that always leads to negotiation problems (especially in Ottawa).

There were so many times while I was reading this that I had to stop and re-read bits with my jaw slightly lowered and eyebrow raised. A couple of times I literally said out loud, "uhhhhhhh, what?"

I don't even know where to begin...

Let me start with the places I agree: yes, a left shot center to play with Stone and Ryan is a good thing. Yes, Brassard is very good on the powerplay - that is basically the only difference to their offensive numbers - although I think Zibanejad had the potential to be as well, if he was used more often on the left point beside Karlsson on the top unit. And one thing you didn't pointed out, which is really the best possible explanation I've been able to come up with for this trade, is that Zibanejad seemed to have serious issues with consistency, but he is still fairly young, so there is still room for that to improve. Perhaps conditioning, but that's something I know nothing about.

Now, I guess I start with the first point, Hoffman's contract. I went through and did these calculations a couple of weeks ago because I was worried about a possible Hoffman offer sheet. Even if someone were to give him the maximum second-level offer sheet - around 7.5 million - and Zibanejad were to re-sign next year at 5.25 million (this was the number I predicted two weeks ago, before this trade), we'd still come in between 5 and 10 million under the cap (depending on the structure of Ceci's contract and how Pageua and Lazar do this season and what kind of contracts they earn).

True, maybe it's not just the cap we have to worry about, but an internal budget. Still, lets think about this rationally for a moment. There would have been essentially two possible scenarios: either Zibanejad doesn't improve much over last season, in which case, some of his recent comparables for contract negotiations would be Nick Foligno, Frans Nielsen, Clark MacArthur, Vince Trocheck, and Derick Brassard himself. Meaning he'd be getting somewhere between 4.75-5.5 million. The other, admittedly less likely, possible scenario would be that he has a breakout season and we'd have to pay up with a huge contract, but honestly, if we suddenly have a 65-70 point first line center, is anyone going to complain about having to give him a massive contract, especially when we have the cap space to pay him?

All i'm hearing from the Senators fanbase is "This team is wasting the prime years of its core! When is management gonna DOOOOO something?!"
So management goes out and gets Ryan and Phaneuf and Brassard.
And the fanbase says "This team is mortgaging the future! What were they thiiinkiiing?"

Ugh. These are some of the most irritating arguments I keep hearing from sports fans. Actually, not just sports fans, but people talking about politics or anything really. Logicians have a name for this fallacy, but I forget what it is. The simple formula for it is this: Step one: take different people from the same set of something - all republicans, or all minorities, or all Ottawa Senators fans. Step two: find a point on which they disagree amongst themselves. Step three: collapse these competing viewpoints into two viewpoints of the class in general, ignoring differences between members of said class, thus implying that they are all hypocrites.

Aside from the occasional morons, the Sens fans who were saying we are wasting the prime years of the core were not the same people who were upset about mortgaging the future. And for those that were saying both, you also have to take timing into consideration: about two years ago it was looking like this was a young team on the brink of becoming a contender, so it made sense to think it was time to make a move, but now we've taken a step back over the past couple years, so it makes sense to be hesitant about trying to suddenly make a contender out of a team that missed the playoffs last year.

The Phaneuf trade made sense, we barely gave up any futures, pretty much just Lindberg. Even the Ryan trade was pretty decent. But this isn't just picks and prospects here. This is player who just turned 23 and is entering his 5th (or 4th full) season. Just hitting his prime.

A) This team cannot bring in free agents without overpaying. No one wants to play in Canada. Period. Name one UFA who took a team-friendly deal to play in Canada this year. No one.

Zibanejad was going to become RFA. I get your point, but why would we need to sign a UFA or trade anyone to fill this role when we had a perfectly good young player for it already.

B) This team has to give up picks and prospects. This team can't eat salary so it has no other leverage. They parted with the guy who was a contract nightmare waiting to happen.

If you say so.

C) This team has enough firepower and it needs more two-way players. Bona fide NHL players aren't cheap and I'd like to know what other assets the team had that other GMs actually want.

Now, this leads me to the most baffling thing about your whole argument. Brassard is a more complete player than Zibanejad? Team has enough firepower and needs more two way players? What in God's name are you talking about? Brassard has been in the league for close to a decade, and has spent significant time under four different coaches, and none of them have trusted him enough defensively to a. play him regularly on the penalty kill - his most ever was 15 seconds per game in 2015 - or b. play him consistently in difficult situations - every year of his career he has always started a significant majority of shifts in the offensive, and while there were a couple of years where his qualcomp was fairly high, for an offensive player starting mostly in the offensive zone, that generally means more that they are playing against the other teams' good shutdown players, than that they are shutting down the other team's good offensive players. This season Zibanejad's and Brassard's deployment and corsi numbers were practically identical, but Zibanejad's two-way game is still evolving, as he was given the opportunity to play regular PK minutes for the first time in his career - just 1:25 per game, which still works out to 119 total minutes on the season, more than Brassard has played in his entire career. Also, Zibanejad broke 50% in the faceoff circle for the first time in his career this year... oh, and so did Brassard.


So yeah, I'm emotional about the trade, I was and still am a huge Zibanejad fan. But the beauty of the human being is, as Nietzsche said, "human is a bridge between ape and posthuman (overhuman, superhuman, or however you want to translate it)." Now this can be interpreted a lot of different ways, but if we take it that the ape represents pure emotion or instinct, and the superhuman represents pure rationality, then this highlights perfectly the point I want to make: it doesn't have to be a choice for humans; our emotions can be backed up by rational argument, and our rational arguments can lead us to feel certain emotions, and both of those statements are perfectly exemplified in this case. You said you talked yourself off the ledge, for me, I started out with a pure emotional reaction, then I stepped back, calmed down, took some time to think about and research the situation, and now not only has my rationalizing justified my emotional response, it has in fact intensified it.

[thedaigle1]

I definitely don't think the trade is horrible. I agree that the second round pick likely becomes nothing, but it's still confusing that we made a win-now trade while also sending an asset to save $2M while spending one of the least amounts of money in the league.

That's just the Eugene factor, my friend. We're all victims of his spend-thrift ways.

[Alfie11]

I hear ya. And I think most people will agree with that.

I specifically did not mention the second round pick in my rant because historically speaking second rounders are about as worthless as seventh rounders. You can argue me on that one but I'm just going by the numbers. I defend this move cos the team is not happy to say 'well we were injured last year and we changed coaches so let's just ice the same roster and see what happens.' This isn't an overhaul but it's also not a trade for the sake of a trade. Again, I think a lot of people are upset cos we LIKED Mika as a dude. Myself included. I think when we evolve beyond human emotion this will all make a lot more sense.

I definitely don't think the trade is horrible. I agree that the second round pick likely becomes nothing, but it's still confusing that we made a win-now trade while also sending an asset to save $2M while spending one of the least amounts of money in the league.

[thedaigle1]

Right now, Brassard is a better player than Zibanejad. He's also a better fit in Ottawa's top six, due to his left-handed shot and playmaking mentality.

You're right, this is a win-now move, and the fanbase realizes it's time to win now. However, we just paid a second round pick to get out of a $2M signing bonus. And our GM said that the ultimate goal for the Senators is to qualify for the playoffs. So it's hard to be optimistic

I hear ya. And I think most people will agree with that.

I specifically did not mention the second round pick in my rant because historically speaking second rounders are about as worthless as seventh rounders. You can argue me on that one but I'm just going by the numbers. I defend this move cos the team is not happy to say 'well we were injured last year and we changed coaches so let's just ice the same roster and see what happens.' This isn't an overhaul but it's also not a trade for the sake of a trade. Again, I think a lot of people are upset cos we LIKED Mika as a dude. Myself included. I think when we evolve beyond human emotion this will all make a lot more sense.

[Alfie11]

Right now, Brassard is a better player than Zibanejad. He's also a better fit in Ottawa's top six, due to his left-handed shot and playmaking mentality.

You're right, this is a win-now move, and the fanbase realizes it's time to win now. However, we just paid a second round pick to get out of a $2M signing bonus. And our GM said that the ultimate goal for the Senators is to qualify for the playoffs. So it's hard to be optimistic

[thedaigle1]

I've pretty much talked myself off the ledge on this one. Mika was a fan favourite and you can't deny that he had huge offensive upside. But I do like that:

-Ottawa could have more Hoffman money set aside now
-Ottawa has a left handed centre to play with Ryan or Stone
-Ottawa has a centre who can rock the man advantage
-Brassard is a player in his prime with a manageable contract
-Brassard can play effectively in all phases and is much more complete that Mika

All i'm hearing from the Senators fanbase is "This team is wasting the prime years of its core! When is management gonna DOOOOO something?!"
So management goes out and gets Ryan and Phaneuf and Brassard.
And the fanbase says "This team is mortgaging the future! What were they thiiinkiiing?"

A) This team cannot bring in free agents without overpaying. No one wants to play in Canada. Period. Name one UFA who took a team-friendly deal to play in Canada this year. No one.
B) This team has to give up picks and prospects. This team can't eat salary so it has no other leverage. They parted with the guy who was a contract nightmare waiting to happen.*
C) This team has enough firepower and it needs more two-way players. Bona fide NHL players aren't cheap and I'd like to know what other assets the team had that other GMs actually want.

*again, I liked Mika and I know a lot of fans felt the same way but his play wasn't in line with the expectations of the organization and that always leads to negotiation problems (especially in Ottawa).

[Josh]

So this is looking more and more like its got "Melnyk" written all over it. There's the signing bonus that Brandon pointed out, and apparently Brassard's contract was front-loaded, meaning his cap hit is much higher than the actual dollars owed to him.

[matchesmalone]

Honestly, I'm clearly biased. But when I step back and look at it as though I'm a talking head on a sports TV show, Zibanejad and Brassard are at present roughly similar players, in terms of value and role, if not style or skillset so much. But Zibanejad just turned 23, and has yet to play his fourth full season. He has room to grow and had a strong finish to last season (44 shots on net in the final 12 games), Brassard will be 29 by the start of the season, and is what he is. And then on top of it Dorion gave up a second round pick. Mike Milburry voice: This is a terrible trade! Terrible! Pierre Dorion should be ashamed of himself.

[Alfie11]

Also, I think the most concerning news all day actually came in Dorion's press conference. He said this helps the Sens chances of making the playoffs next year, which is the 'ultimate goal'. Unfortunately, these are dark days to be a Sens fan.

[Alfie11]

Interesting responses so far - seems like the majority is definitely not in favour of this trade.

I'm indifferent right now. Zibanejad has potential ... he has all of the tools. However, there's definitely legitimate concerns if he ever reaches that potential. So far in his career he hasn't been able to put his tools together and make it work like he should be. With that being said, he's very young and has had two productive seasons. Plus he's in the best shape of his life.

I like Brassard, though. He's played very well for the Rangers and, I believe, gives us a better second line right now.

The draft pick part sucks, though. That shouldn't have been included. Here's what I'm thinking, though. I saw on Twitter that the Sens had this deal done for a while, or at least likely done. Brassard got a $2M signing bonus on July 15. Three days later, he's traded. It's very possible it was a 4th or 5th pick, and New York eating the $2M cost the Sens a higher pick. Plus, Brassard has a receding salary contract, so the Sens will end up paying less for this season and in the future.

The only good possibility out of all of this is that the Sens could be using their long-term savings to re-sign Hoffman.

[matchesmalone]

I don't really know how to feel or react right now.

First of all, Zibanejad is/was pretty much my favorite player; I just got his jersey last year.

Second, after a decade of defending Bryan Murray and practically every move the Sens made, I'm finally on the other side of the equation again. I like the coaching hires, but outside of the first round the draft was questionable, free agency was a dud, and now this. I haven't been this upset about a Sens trade since we traded Martin Havlat for Josh Hennessy and Tom Preissing.

[Josh]

Absolutely terrible. Wtf is this? Sens give up the better pick and better player. This doesn't even address a positional need.

[matchesmalone]

Fuck this bullshit.

[Matt the Aussie]

Gotta love cost certainty...lol wow.

AND we gave up a second? What on earth was that for?

[thedaigle1]

Mika Z traded

With a 2018 2nd for Derrick Brassard and a 2018 7th. Holy fuck.