Nevertheless, I saw a tweet today:
And I would like to participate in the on line activities.Giroux-Couturier-Konecny— Sauce (@ExtraSauce_) June 20, 2018
Weal-Patrick-Voracek
Lindblom- -
Vecchione-Laughton-
Assuming all the free agents are gone that's the lineup I know of remaining players.(would rather Laughton be 3C but ya know)
Fill in the blanks. Do not edit the lines.
First note: you'll notice that a certain winger who wears #17 is not included. I'm buying into the rumors that Simmonds is on the trading block, and I've had him shipped off to Calgary for months now (more on that in a minute).
So here's how I'd complete Sauce's post:
Giroux-Couturier-Konecny
Weal-Patrick-Voracek
Lindblom-Vorobyev(1)-Rick Nash(2)
Vecchione-Laughton-Raffl(3)
(1) Mikhail Vorobyev and Nicolas Aube-Kubel are both NHL-ready and I won't listen to anyone who tells me otherwise.
(2) A veteran winger with goal-scoring and penalty-killing ability and some deep playoff runs under his belt? Why the fuck would you not want Rick Nash? For what it's worth, Matt Cane's free agent salary projector has Nash getting a 1-year, $4.6 million dollar contract. If you want to bump it to 2 years and $8.5 million, that's a-okay with me.
(3) I think he admitted this after the fact but he just left Raffl off. I guess I'll note here that I'd also be fine with Taylor Leier in the Vecchione spot, because the Honey Bees fucking rocked.
Now, to address Simmonds. I read something once several months ago about Calgary's GM wanting to toughen up his team and his room. So, of course, we're shipping Simmonds and Gudas to Calgary for Dougie Hamilton (three years remaining at $5.75m per). Simmonds takes one of the alternate captain patches and the new pair immediately brings a new kind of brutality to Calgary that they apparently need (I don't know).
But I would think we'd have to sweeten the pot, right? I mean it's three years of a top-four guy who can play on the power play in exchange for perhaps just one year of a power forward and two years of someone who has only been a top-pairing guy when he was stapled to Ivan Provorov.
I looked back through some trades to find defensemen similar to Hamilton who have been moved:
- Ryan McDonagh - Granted, this was a deadline acquisition (plus another year) that also included JT Miller. But it netted NYR Vlad Namestnikov, two decent-at-worst prospects, and a first round pick
- I just want to note that I'm not going to use Dion Phaneuf as a comparable, even though it would make Simmonds+Gudas look like a great deal for the Flames
- Sami Vatanen - NJD spent Adam Henrique (with a year and a half remaining), a minor-leaguer, and a third-round pick
- Travis Hamonic - He cost Calgary a first-round pick and two second-round picks
- Niklas Hjalmarsson - Arizona paid Connor Murphy (career high 17 points in a season) and Laurent Dauphin (who they eventually traded back to Arizona in the Anthony Duclair trade but scored 0 points in 2 NHL games last season)
That's not a lot to go on, especially since nobody listed above has really filled the scoresheet like Hamilton (17-27--44 last year, 52-127--179 over the last four season). McDonagh's best four-year stretch was 152 points, and if last year was an indication then he seems to be declining in terms of offensive production. I think Vatanen is good because Hockey Twitter has warped my mind, but he's totaled 103 points in the past four seasons. Ditto Hamonic, who has reached 30 points just once in his career. Hjalmarsson has never even reached the 30 mark (though to be fair he's a 'proven winner' so his trade value was probably inflated).
I think all four of those comparables are probably 'better defensively' than Hamilton, while also not as good offensively. McDonagh would probably be the best comparable, though it's tough to gauge what he actually fetched because his package included a 25-year-old, 50-60-point-per-year guy.
If I have to try to summarize this and wrap it up, I think Simmonds-Gudas aren't enough. That pair would basically amount to what New Jersey sent Anaheim for Vatanen, and Hamilton scores about twice as much as him. I think Calgary would want a pick or prospect, and that's where it gets dicey for me because I don't know how the Flyers (or the Flames) value Philly's prospect pool. I guess I would just blindly trust Ron Hextall to include a sweeter that wasn't too sweet.
And, alas, here is the bottom half of the depth chart that I started fifty paragraphs ago:
Provorov-Hamilton
Gostisbehere-Myers
Sanheim-Hagg
MacDonald
Elliot
Lyon
