By Daniel A. Marley
It has been a pain looking at all of these National Hockey League Trade Deadline rumors these past couple of weeks. All I see online is “Rick Nash destined to go to this team” and” that backup will get a starting role with that other team.” I am sick of it!
However, I am guilty of contributing to these tiresome rumors, like what I am doing right now.
Instead of talking about what top National Hockey League players will be on the move, I will go ahead and discuss the rookies or prospects that could be on the move and how they will fair elsewhere.
One teams that is in no place to be trading away their farm system right now is the New York Rangers.
During the fiasco of a victory back on February 19 against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Madison Square Garden, a plethora of die-hard Rangers fans continuously chanted “WE DON’T NEED YOU” and other variations of this phrase towards Blue Jackets captain Rick Nash. As much as the fans would love to see a goal-scorer like him on the team, the asking price by Columbus General Manager Scott Howson is too erroneous. The proposed offer by Howson for Nash is Brandon Dubinsky, Chris Kreider, and a first-round pick.
Dubinsky has had an odd year offensively, but his contributions on and off the ice are too good to pass up. Krieder, according to most scouts, has a Nash-like complex and is eager to play for the Rangers club. If the Rangers trade both of these players, unless they win a Stanley Cup this year, there will be a lot of dissatisfied fans.
Also, his $7.8 million cap hit will make it impossible for the Rangers to resign players like Derek Stepan, Michael Del Zotto, and Ryan McDonagh, who have positively contributed to the team’s new nucleus.
From the way that I see it, there will be three teams that will be eager to trade away their future or to go for it all this year, or for their own personal reasons. Those teams are the Phoenix Coyotes, Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Los Angeles Kings.
. Currently, the Phoenix Coyotes are seventh in the Western Conference with a 29-21-9 record for 67 points, and have gone 8-1-1 in their last 10 games.
The NHL wants to keep the Coyotes in the desert; yet they are ranked last in attendance and there are eight other cities up north that are begging for a team. The Blue Jackets have a better attendance than them, and they are last in the standings.
Speaking about the Jackets and the Coyotes, NHL.com headlines “On the Prowl” back on the evening of February 19, as the Coyotes are looking to add players to build a more successful playoff run. Above the headline is a member of the Coyotes organization and Nash, which is very peculiar and might hinder something unexpected. The odds of Nash going to Phoenix are currently astronomical.
The thing that makes Phoenix so unique to me is their collection of veterans. Their team’s average age is 28 years old, and the majority of the team has been around the league for quite some time. Michal Rozsival, Ray Whitney, Radim Vrbata, Derek Morris, and Adrian Aucoin have been with multiple clubs and are so far use to the different styles of play, despite what most hockey fans think.
Phoenix would love to add a top goal scorer to their team, whether it is Nash or someone else. They have over $10 million in cap space at the moment to make a risky move, but given the current circumstance that they are in, they will need to give up their young core to do so.
Players whom the sellers would love to receive in return are defensemen Brandon Gormley and David Rundblad and goaltender Mark Visentin.
Gormley has been considered one of the best defenseman coming out of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. He is a phenomenal two-way defenseman, a cornerstone piece for any team’s rebuild. According to HockeysFuture.com, Gormley will make contact with the opponent, is solid in his zone, has a bullet of a slapshot, and is an excellent skater.
If moved, Gormley will be used like T.J. Brodie of the Calgary Flames. The team will center their new defensive core around him.
Currently, he has 10 goals and 22 assists in 35 games this season between the Moncton Wildcats and the Shawinigan Cataractes.
Rundblad was part of the mini-buster trade that sent forward Kyle Turris to the Ottawa Senators. Like Mika Zibanjead, Ottawa fans would have loved to see how this defenseman will develop.
He spent the last four years with Skelleftea HC of the Swedish Elite League, or Elitserien, posting good numbers on both ends of the ice. This year, he is acclimating himself with the North American style of play at both the pro and minor league level.
Most scouts love Rundblad’s two-way style of play. He has good vision on the ice, which allows him to set up plays, handle the puck well, and quarterback the man advantage. On the defensive front, he does need to work on his aggressiveness. With a team in need of a rebuild, they will work with Rundblad on this and help develop him into an elite two-way defenseman.
At the NHL level this year, Rundblad has 26 hits and26 blocked shots with six penalty minutes in 26 games. On the scoreboard, Rundblad has scored one goal and assisted on five during that same stretch.
Visentin is a golatender that could be on a lot of team’s radars because of his size, rebound control, and willingness to improve his skills.
After his sluggish first year in the Ontario Hockey League, where he had a 4.26 goals against average and 87.1 save percentage, Visentin rapidly improved and is being regarded as one of the best goaltenders in the Ontario Hockey League.
This season, in 35 games with the Niagara Ice Dogs, Visentin is 25-7-2 with 69 goals allowed on 885 shots against. I would not be surprised if the team he goes to next year, if traded, will give him a starting role.
The Maple Leafs were once sellers. Now, they are buyers.
General Manager Brian Burke has done a splendid job ridding his club of good yet unwanted personnel and replacing them with younger talent. After the Trade Deadline last year, in their last 15 games, the Leafs went 8-6-1 to end the season on a good note. Currently, they are in a fight with the Washington Capitals and the Winnipeg Jets for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
The Leafs are still fairly young and could be in need of more veteran leadership. They have been rumored to acquire Rick Nash and have some great rebuilding pieces that the Blue Jackets could use; however, they could and should be in the hunt for a more solid defenseman.
They are eighth in the league in goals for with 178. This is a clear indication that offense is not a problem.
Currently, they are 26th in the league in goals allowed with 180.
Defensemen with expiring contracts that would love to play for the Leafs are Shea Weber and Ryan Suter of the Nashville Predators. Since the Predators might have trouble financially retaining these two, the Leafs could make an outstanding offer to bring at least one of these stars to Toronto. Toronto has not won a Cup since 1967, and with the current competitive nature that this club exhibits, a deal like this could be on the horizon.
The prospects that I could see being moved from the Leafs are forwards Nazem Kadri, Joe Colborne, and Jerry D’Amigo.
Kadri is about one to three years away from being NHL ready and is expected to be a consistent 20-plus goal scorer. However, there are some concerns about his playmaking, which explains his low offensive production for the AHL Toronto Marlies. The Leafs might not want to wait for him to develop, because if he does not reach his potential, he could see himself being a career minor leaguer.
On a team looking to rebuild, the organization could help Kadri work on his playmaking skills. Kadri could be a first or second line center if proper time is put into his game, but if coaches continue to overlook this issue, he could be a third or fourth liner at best if he ever does reach the NHL.
Colborne has been recently a favorite of mine ever since he came to the Toronto organization from the Boston Bruins as part of the Tomas Kaberle trade. His numbers clearly show that he has adapted well to Toronto’s style of play. In 63 games for the Marlies, Colborne has scored 24 goals and assisted on 27 with a plus-12 rating. This offensive production was made possible by his good ice vision and his puck release.
His size, however, brings about a psychological problem to his game. He performs based on the size of his opponents and how he manages to offensively and defensively go around him. Fortunately, this issue has been declining of late and Colborne has the potential to battle for a top-six spot next year for any team.
The Binghamton, New York native D’Amigo has been viewed as a future two-way winger whose size can add a major presence at both ends of the ice. He has a high scoring upside and has shown great improvement in the minors statistically, increasing from 15 points in 43 games to 32 points in 54 games. A player of his caliber will definitely earn him a NHL roster spot for any club next season.
The Los Angeles Kings made a major move to acquire Mike Richards from the Philadelphia Flyers for Brayden Scheen and Wayne Simmonds. Scheen and Simmons are prospering in the city of Brotherly Love with their new club succeeding, whereas Richards is doing poorly with 28 points in 51 games while the team struggles offensively.
They too are in the hunt for Rick Nash and other top goal scorers. However, they need to move some big salary in the process. They virtually have no cap space.
Defensively, however, they are phenomenal. Currently, they are third in the league with 126 goals against.
Richards, along with Jarret Stoll, Dustin Penner, and Simon Gagne, could be that salary on the move. However, in order for teams to take their salary, they need to give up some of their top prospects.
These prospects include goaltender Jonathan Bernier, defensemen Slava Voyonov and Derek Forbort, and forward Andrei Loktionov.
At this point in his career, Bernier should be a starter. He joins an elite club with Boston’s Tuuka Rask and Minnesota’s Josh Harding of backups who should be earning full-time roles somewhere else. His hybrid style of play of stand-up and butterfly goaltending, along with his quickness from post to post and great puck handling, has him on every team’s radar.
Unfortunately in Los Angeles, Jonathan Quick beat him to the starting job. Bernier needs to go somewhere else before his talent depreciates in value and consistency.
Voyonov is a defenseman that every team likes. He plays a solid two-way game, has phenomenal speed, and contributes to the special teams well. The only negative criticism that I have about this guy is that he rarely takes shots when he has an open lane in the offensive zone. Besides that, he is a great asset to any rebuilding team. Any organization would love to build a defensive core around him.
At the NHL level, Voyonov has four goals and seven assists, two of each coming from the power play, with a plus-four rating. He has also blocked 29 shots and hit 48 people.
Before Voyonov, Forbort was seen as the best defensive prospect in the Kings organization. A defenseman who has a phenomenal decision-making process on and off the ice, Forbort is a perfect example of a stay-at-home defenseman. He will get the puck out of the zone and make sharp passes to his teammates to help generate offensive rushes.
Currently, Forbort is playing for the University of North Dakota. According to HockeysFuture.com, he is projected to be a number-one defenseman. The Kings have two defensemen who currently are in contention for that opening— Jack Johnson and Drew Doughty.
Center Loktionov is a two-way forward who can be perfectly utilized for any special teams unit. He is projected to be on the second line at best for an NHL club, and utilized in important situations where his impressive face-off skills will come in handy. He is adjusting well to the American hockey style from his Russian roots, but could use another year of development to further enhance his skills. Once he reaches his prime, he will be an effective two-way force.
Everyone is focusing their attention on where the stars of the league will go. I am one of several die-hard fans who care about the players that are on the move. It is a common practice to see competing teams trade away the future of their franchise for some mercenary rental and succeed, and we have seen busts. For Flyers fans, it was Eric Lindros. For the first Winnipeg team, it was Teemu Selanne. For the Florida Panthers, it was Roberto Louongo. For the Islanders, they were Louongo, Zdeno Chara, and a first-round pick which led to Jason Spezza. I like seeing trades like this, because what could have been or what will become of these young and talented players will transpire somewhere else.
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