We’re not good enough right now to compete and be the favourite to win the conference. Other teams are as good or better. We don’t have the picks to trade our way into top contention as we did in 2017-18. Other teams have double or more the 2nds to go all in. A couple may be willing to move their 2019 first rounder. We are not.
I had been thinking that it may be too hard to sell off our vets at this point. I’ve said as much on here. But after looking at what other teams have done in the past, selling off multiple graduating players in a major rebuild, it wouldn’t really be so tough over the course of the season after all.
All hypothetical of course, and I understand we’d need to find trading partners, but here we go:
Oshawa is rumoured to be shopping Noel and Antropov. Perhaps they plan on having their cake and eating it too. I mean, hey, they’re first in the east. The experience of a long playoff run this year would help with the Memorial Cup bidding process.
They could sell those guys off, but improve their OA’s, and by doing so, still contend this year and have more in the cupboard than they do now for a run next year.
So, they move Noel and Antropov elsewhere for large return. We trade them Meireles who’d replace Noel’s offence at half the price. We take back Walker and Resnick as inexpensive OA’s.
Meireles is a better than average OA in the same category as a Maksimovich. So he’s worth more than the standard 2nd, 2nd, 3rd. The Maksimovich deal had him going to Ottawa for Swankler, three 2nds and a 13th.
To Osh:
Meireles.
To Kit:
2nd ‘20(Wind)
2nd ‘23
2nd ‘24
5th ‘23
Resnick
Walker
We have to ice a team for the remainder of the season. That’s why we bring in Oshawa’s excess OA’s giving them landing spots to finish out their OHL careers and provide veteran depth. There isn’t a young Swankler coming our way, hence the 5th rounder.
Flint apparently wants to go all in this year hard. They haven’t had a winning season yet in Flint and they have a fan base they’ll want to reward for enduring some tough seasons.
They have a veteran roster and have already started buying (Lalonde). They may want to go all in so much so that they’d be willing to part with a good young player (Vierling, who’s rumoured to want a trade). After all, after swinging the Lalonde deal, they still have a number of high picks left. (six 2nds and seven 3rds). Therefore, they can bring in a couple high end F’s that could put them over the top in a year the conference is up for grabs and still have picks left to make more moves (ie. Guelph last year) or go towards the impending rebuild.
To Flint:
Damiani
Yantsis.
To Kitchener:
Vierling.
2nd ‘20(Soo).
2nd ‘24.
3rd ‘24
5th ‘23(Ham)
Vierling was the #2 overall pick in the OHL draft. That’s value! However, Vierling wasn’t ranked that high in his OHL draft year. One scouting service had him going at #11. I’m thinking that Flint may have selected the best player that would report. In this deal, this isn’t Flint trading a 2nd overall player the caliber of, say, Othmann next year. So with this in mind, they may be more receptive to moving him. Tough for Flint to give him up but they’d be getting a 50 goal scorer and one of the top two way players in the league who’s scoring at over a PPG pace and who’s been at the WJC camp, in return. Both with the experience of long playoff runs (2018).
I’m comparing this deal to the Logan Brown deal to the Rangers. That was Brown, McEneny for Ladd, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 5th. Brown may be higher end than Damiani but Yantsis is a higher end OA than McEneny. Once you factor in the fact Vierling is a year older than Ladd, I think this is a fair deal.
Consensus is that it is better to split up players to get more in return for them than packaging them up. But I’m thinking we might have to include both of these guys to Flint to be able to get somebody the calibre of Vierling in return as I think one of those guys would not get it done by themselves.
Though there’s a slim chance that Damiani returns for an OA season, there is a chance nonetheless. That could entice Flint to do this deal as well, instead of dealing for a more expensive bigger fish in this deal who definitely won’t return.
London could use an upgrade in the OA department. They’d like size too. But they may want to contend again next year as well. Therefore, they probably don’t want to blow their brains out burning assets this year in acquiring too many high end players. Therefore, the cheapest way to bring in higher end help is via OA’s. Coincidentally, London can upgrade on a couple of their OA’s (Tymkin & Moskal)
To London:
Hawel
To Kitchener:
2nd ‘22
2nd ‘23(King)
3rd ‘22
We get back what it cost us to get Hawel in the first place and London addresses their size issue and upgrades their OA group. The only issue I see with Hawel going to London, is that he formerly played in Guelph with Merkley. Is there any friction between the two? Hard to tell. Merkley wasn’t liked by many in that room. But I doubt very much that London would allow something like that to affect the building of a winner. If that were the case, they likely don’t make the Merkley deal in the first place.
Before we make these deals, in our cupboard, we currently sit at three 2nds and nine 3rds. Afterwards, we’d sit at:
2nd ‘20(Wsr)
2nd ‘20(Soo)
2nd ‘21(Kit)*
2nd ‘22(Ldn)
2nd ‘22(Kit)*
2nd ‘23(Osh)
2nd ‘23(KIng)
2nd ‘24(Osh)
2nd ‘24(Bar)*
2nd ‘24(Flint)
Add to that eleven thirds, three of them in 2020.
Two of the incoming 2nds are in ‘20 giving us three ‘04 born players coming into the lineup next year as we had happen with Valade, Langdon and Sebrango. That sets us up in the future. Having three 3rds in 2020 as well, we could trade down in the week before the draft or use them to take a flyer or two on high end NCAA commits. We also add a high end young player in Vierling. That means one less piece we’d need to trade for when we look to contend in 20-21 and 21-22.
We’d have a full cupboard of picks to go all in next year in a year the western champ could get an automatic berth in the Memorial Cup that’ll likely be hosted in the east.
With two 2nds in the next draft, we’d also have the option of moving our 1st rounder in a deal for an elite veteran without it hurting too much - much like how it went down at the 2017 deadline with the dealing of Ladd not hurting too much with Vukojovic confirmed coming.
I choose to keep Ingham as we need solid goaltending for the rest of this year. Also, fingers are crossed that he returns for an overage season next year.
However, if it’s too much a gamble hoping he comes back as an OA, we can explore moving him as well. Part of that process would be to try and get a Wu or Hasley to sign for the remainder of the season with the promise that they’d split the duties with Pfiel. There is a reason that Wu is skating with the Rangers every once in a while. Can something be in the works regarding his status? If not one of those two, I’m sure whoever we’d deal Ingham to would have a throw-in goalie that could come back our way to complete the deal.
Saginaw may look for an upgrade in net. Especially if their import OA Prosvetov doesn’t return. Sudbury also could use an upgrade in net. There are contenders out there who would like to upgrade their goaltending.
Should Prosvetov not return, they’d have both a need in net and an open import spot. If Bode Wilde doesn’t return, they may want to replace his spot with a veteran D. They could do that on the cheap by adding a second import. Perhaps something could be worked out where Ingham and Bergkvist find their way to Saginaw?
We’d recoup the picks it cost us to acquire Ingham in the first place (2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 6th) and bring in a couple picks for Bergkvist (as an NHL drafted player, but a historically hard to move import, he could be worth maybe a couple 4ths?).
We could replace Bergkvist’s minutes by acquiring an OA D on the cheap to finish out the season. A comparable would be a Cole Cameron type.
But for now, I’ll continue as if we keep Ingham and Bergkvist.
After the dust settles:
Out:
C-Greg Meireles
RW-Jonathon Yantsis
C-Liam Hawel
C-Riley Damiani
In:
LW-Cole Resnick(OA)
LW-Daniel Walker(OA)
C-Evan Vierling(02)
Seven 2nds
Two 3rds
Two 5ths.
Here’s how we’d look post trade deadline:
OA’s:
LW- Resnick
LW- Walker
00’s:
LW/D- Rupoli
D- MacPherson
D- Bergkvist
G- Ingham
G- Pfiel
01’s:
C/W- Petizien
RW- Stepien
RW- Dickerson
D- Vukojovic
D- Xhekaj
02’s:
RW- Valade
C- Vierling
C- Langdon
C- Serpa
RW- MacDonnell
D- Sebrango
D- Ottavainen
03’s:
C- Pinelli
C- Fishman
D- Motew
(These lines are interchangeable):
Petizien-Langdon-Valade
Resnick-Vierling-MacDonnell
Walker-Pinelli-Stepien
Dickerson-Serpa-Fishman
Rupoli
Vukojovic-Bergkvist
MacPherson-Sebrango
Ottavainen-Xhekaj
Motew
Ingham
Pfiel
After the season, we’d lose Resnick, Walker, Bergkvist, Rupoli and Pfiel to graduation.
MacPherson and hopefully Ingham come back for OA seasons. We draft another veteran import (01 born) who’d come in to play a big part next year just like Bergkvist this year.
We go all in next year in an effort to get to the final. We’ll be deep because of the expected development of our 02 and 03 group. Therefore, we shouldn’t have to use up all the picks in the cupboard on next year alone. But we’d still be able to swing deals like we did in 17-18. That would leave assets available to go all in the following year as well when our 02’s and 03’s are 19 and 18 years old and we’ll have a couple pretty good OA’s in Petizien and Stepien.
If Wu and Schmidt report by then? We’ll even be better.
Thoughts?
