Would be an vast overpayment by the Senators.
The difference between Zibanejad and Duchene last season was 10 points. Zibanejad is still developing as a player, while Duchene is fully developed. Zibanejad is two years younger, bigger, cheaper, better defensively, more physical and a better fit on the Sens. Duchene is a UFA in two years, and will likely require a 6-7M salary on a long-term deal, while Zibanejad is a cost-controlled asset that will cost significantly less to re-sign. For the money conscious Senators, swapping these two centers very well could result in trading 5+ years of Zibanejad for 3 years of Duchene. For all these reasons I'm not even sure Ottawa would pull the trigger on a one-for-one deal of Zibanejad for Duchene, even though no one will argue Zibanejad is the better player at this point in his career.
A slightly better young RD in Adam Larsson just returned Taylor Hall straight up. Young cost-controlled top 4 RD have tremendous value in this league. With rumors of Duchene being offered for Trouba, a slightly better albeit more expensive D to re-sign, I expect Ceci would almost be able to return Duchene in a one-for-one deal.
So yeah, Avs take this and run. Sens would never offer such a deal, as doing so makes them a far worse team.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but as I've posted before, this myth needs to die. Let's deal with some actual facts about Zibanejad being a two way centre.
- Zibanejad got an utterly ridiculous 60+% of his starts in the offensive zone, 18th highest among all centre's who played over 30 games last year
- He faced similar competition to Duchene
- Played with top linemates (Ryan, Karlsson, Hoffman)
- Did not suppress shots against any better than Duchene
- Is far worse on faceoffs than Duchene (50% vs 57%)
- More goals against per 60 minutes than Duchene
- Nearly identical relative corsi
He had a superior raw corsi by a bit, but considering Duchene was on the worst possession team in the league, that's not surprise. I'm just curious to understand how the superior defensive player got top offensive linemates, more offensive zone starts, and somehow was on ice for more goals against per 60 minutes, and was on ice or a similar amount of shots against as well. Regarding offense,
Offensively, Zibanejad has a career high of 51 points, a threshold
Duchene has surpassed five times in seven years - and one of those two seasons he did not was the lockout year, and in 47 games Duchene was only 8 points shy of beating 51 points again too. The other year he did not was the season in which he only played 58 games and played through injuries the entire year. If we extrapolate his lockout year,
he has surpassed Zibanejad's career high in points 6 times in 7 years, and the one season he did not was when he was injured.