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[Proposal] Trading our forwards for a top defenceman


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We can all see the log-jam here in Vancouver up front, with Gaunce and Shinkaruk playing amazingly in Utica and still nowhere near cracking the roster. Virtanen and McCann are staying around, and the veterans are playing well, so we've just got a lot of value at wing which is being wasted. Meanwhile, we've got a gaping hole on defence which is even more apparent with injuries to Sbisa and Tanev.

The New Jersey Devils are the opposite - they have a plethora of strong young defencemen but their forwards are ageing and they could desperately use offensive help, especially young guys. In the past I've said we should target Severson but now our main hole is a physical, shutdown right handed defenceman to play with Edler or Hutton in our top-4 in the future as well as now.

I say we go after Adam Larsson, and go after him hard. We just saw what he's capable of first hand, he's not flashy but he's a dependable, consistent right handed shutdown defenceman with great size. Right now all our righties are tiny (in particular Biega, Weber and Bartkowski when he plays on the right) and no one really plays well defensively aside from Tanev and Hamhuis. Larsson is the type of defenceman who can play 20 minutes this season but at only 22 years old, he'll be on this blueline for another decade in our top-4. Subban is up and coming but still a long way away from the NHL physically, and I believe Larsson would be the ideal partner for Hutton. Of course, he could also play with fellow Swede Edler and leave Tanev and Hutton as a great duo. Suddenly we have two shutdown defencemen (Tanev and Larsson) and two puck movers (Edler and Hutton) who will be on this defence for a long time to come.

Obviously taking their top pairing defenceman won't be easy and I think we'd have to pay them back with a defenceman.

TO NJD: Luca Sbisa or Bartkowski + one of Jensen, Shinkaruk, Baertschi or Gaunce

TO VAN: Adam Larsson

Depending on how much they want, I'd be willing to part with Shinkaruk and Sbisa at the very most, or Jensen and Sbisa at the least (maybe they throw in a pick as well). Shinkaruk is a fantastic future top-6 forward so I'd rather hold on to him. I don't believe Shinkaruk alone would fetch us Larsson and they'd need some sort of defensive compensation. Essentially we're upgrading a bottom pairing defenceman with the value of a top AHL scorer into a top-4 defenceman.

At the most, Sbisa + Shinkaruk, at the least, Bartkowski + Jensen + maybe a pick, but I'd be willing to do any combination of those to land Larsson.

This season:

Edler - Tanev

Hamhuis - Larsson

Hutton - Sbisa/Bartkowski (whoever's left)

 

Next season:

Edler - Tanev

Hutton - Larsson

Hamhuis (cheap) - UFA

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You have to remember that Larsson if still fairly young (especially for a d-man) and is established in the NHL. A player they may have wanted would have been someone like Etem or another young player that has some NHL experience, as the Devils can't really trade a young certainty for a "maybe" at this point. Also, the d-man we give them hold no value other than to just replace Larsson, so the value comes from the prospect and pick(s).

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Once again no team will take our scraps for their young bright stars. 

I wouldn't go calling Shinkaruk a scrap. 1st round pick, goal-per-game scorer in his second AHL year, that's about as valuable an asset as we have. Shinkaruk and Sbisa are both young and the Devils desperately need a future top-6 scoring forward.

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Vertanan or McCan would be the starting point.... no thanks

Our young wingers:

Virtanen

Boeser

Baertschi

Shinkaruk

Gaunce

Jensen

Vey

 

Our young R defencemen:

Tanev

Subban

Biega

Fedun

 

Compare and contrast the quality and quantity there. To be honest I'd probably even do Virtanen straight up for Larsson at this point. We have enough wingers. We have an embarassingly thin defence, especially on the right side. This team lost Ehrhoff and Salo a long time ago, never really replaced them, then they lose Clendening and Corrado and haven't done anything there either. We need to make a big move to fill this void.

 

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I wouldn't go calling Shinkaruk a scrap. 1st round pick, goal-per-game scorer in his second AHL year, that's about as valuable an asset as we have. Shinkaruk and Sbisa are both young and the Devils desperately need a future top-6 scoring forward.

Although this reply is not intended for me, I should state that the quality was not the issue I had with the proposal (although Jensen probably has lower trade value at the moment, but you did give a solid list of choices), but rather the position that the Devils are in that makes it a tough deal to make. Larsson is one of their few young players (they are quite bare), so although you are meeting one need, it takes away something that I don't think they can give up unless there is more certainty in return. 

With that said, I've always liked Larsson and would love to get him on the Canucks.

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Scraps?

Very funny.

He's right though that NJ laughs at that offer. There was a point where Larsson struggled (due to back problems and confidence in his play) where NJ might have been convinced with a good enough package, but now it would take more than a defenceman who should be in his prime but has underwhelmed and a young, offensive player who has a small sample size (in the AHL) of scoring success.

And if they have lots of defenceman, why do they want another in return? Just because we have to move one? They won't take on a piece they don't need because it helps us.

I wouldn't go calling Shinkaruk a scrap. 1st round pick, goal-per-game scorer in his second AHL year, that's about as valuable an asset as we have. Shinkaruk and Sbisa are both young and the Devils desperately need a future top-6 scoring forward.

Very late 1st round pick, compared to a very high 1st round pick in Larsson. And Shink has played 11 games, so while it's great to see him scoring so well, it's hardly a big enough sample size for NJ to base a deal on for one of their top defencemen.

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Although this reply is not intended for me, I should state that the quality was not the issue I had with the proposal (although Jensen probably has lower trade value at the moment, but you did give a solid list of choices), but rather the position that the Devils are in that makes it a tough deal to make. Larsson is one of their few young players (they are quite bare), so although you are meeting one need, it takes away something that I don't think they can give up unless there is more certainty in return. 

With that said, I've always liked Larsson and would love to get him on the Canucks.

I know it's hard to part with one of your best defencemen which is why I included Sbisa.

Similar to the Kesler for Bonino + 1st + Sbisa trade, where the Ducks used the 1st round pick and Sbisa to upgrade on Bonino. The Canucks don't do that deal without Bonino because we'd be left without any center. Bonino is obviously far worse than Kesler though.

Likewise, Sbisa is worse than Larsson, but Shinkaruk makes up for that and fills an organizational need of theirs.

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I know it's hard to part with one of your best defencemen which is why I included Sbisa.

Similar to the Kesler for Bonino + 1st + Sbisa trade, where the Ducks used the 1st round pick and Sbisa to upgrade on Bonino. The Canucks don't do that deal without Bonino because we'd be left without any center. Bonino is obviously far worse than Kesler though.

Likewise, Sbisa is worse than Larsson, but Shinkaruk makes up for that and fills an organizational need of theirs.

Different situations though. We didn't have a ready made replacement for Kesler yet so we needed Bonino to have the deal make sense and not rush Horvat. You've said yourself NJ already has too many good defencemen so they don't need Sbisa coming back in the deal. So the only thing that'd be interested in is Shinkaruk, but that's not enough for them to consider moving Larsson.

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I know it's hard to part with one of your best defencemen which is why I included Sbisa.

Similar to the Kesler for Bonino + 1st + Sbisa trade, where the Ducks used the 1st round pick and Sbisa to upgrade on Bonino. The Canucks don't do that deal without Bonino because we'd be left without any center. Bonino is obviously far worse than Kesler though.

Likewise, Sbisa is worse than Larsson, but Shinkaruk makes up for that and fills an organizational need of theirs.

If Philly offers Andrew MacDonald and Robert Hagg for Chris Tanev, would you say yes? MacDonald is worse than Tanev, but at least he's a defenseman. Robert Hagg probably makes up for the difference because he fills an organizational need.

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If Philly offers Andrew MacDonald and Robert Hagg for Chris Tanev, would you say yes? MacDonald is worse than Tanev, but at least he's a defenseman. Robert Hagg probably makes up for the difference because he fills an organizational need.

Another way of putting this is "would you take Hagg for Tanev straight up?" If not, the replacement isn't going to make the difference, and depending on the contract of the replacement, it may actually decrease the value of the trade. 

If they would accept the trade straight up, then they might ask for a replacement so that they are able to complete the deal.

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If Philly offers Andrew MacDonald and Robert Hagg for Chris Tanev, would you say yes? MacDonald is worse than Tanev, but at least he's a defenseman. Robert Hagg probably makes up for the difference because he fills an organizational need.

To be honest, I probably would if those guys fit our timeline better and they were right handed defencemen but they don't and they're not. Value-wise, that's what I'm getting at and I think Hagg + MacDonald is pretty close to Tanev. The problem is they're both lefties, MacDonald is too old for our young core and Hagg is too young to properly fit in.

By the time this trade is made that I proposed (say around the deadline) Shinkaruk would be more than ready to jump into the NHL and with such a thin offence over there, he'd be playing 3rd if not 2nd line minutes. Optimistically, he scores at a 20 goal pace, pessimistically he scores at a 10 goal pace.

Suddenly the trade is a middle-6 forward, 10-20 goal scorer but future top-6 scorer + a 17 but up to 20 minute defenceman for one 24 minute defenceman.

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Different situations though. We didn't have a ready made replacement for Kesler yet so we needed Bonino to have the deal make sense and not rush Horvat. You've said yourself NJ already has too many good defencemen so they don't need Sbisa coming back in the deal. So the only thing that'd be interested in is Shinkaruk, but that's not enough for them to consider moving Larsson.

They don't have enough defencemen to completely fill a 24 minute void on their blueline, that's why Sbisa helps, so it's certainly not just Shinkaruk for Larsson straight up.

If we were going that route I'd offer Virtanen for Larsson straight up, which I would do instantly and I'm sure the Devils would too IF they believed their other young defencemen are capable enough of filling Larsson's shoes by themselves. If not, they'd probably prefer Shinkaruk + Sbisa.

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They don't have enough defencemen to completely fill a 24 minute void on their blueline, that's why Sbisa helps, so it's certainly not just Shinkaruk for Larsson straight up.

If we were going that route I'd offer Virtanen for Larsson straight up, which I would do instantly and I'm sure the Devils would too IF they believed their other young defencemen are capable enough of filling Larsson's shoes by themselves. If not, they'd probably prefer Shinkaruk + Sbisa.

Sbisa's not a 24 minute defenceman either, he's a 17-18 minute guy. The Devils have a few of those, and even if they aren't quite ready for that heavy a load yet they can share it amongst themselves and grow with the rest of the team (which isn't at a point where they can really compete yet anyway).

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