So, just a few things to add to a few of the deals then.....
The Calgary-Kamloops deal: I haven't seen or heard from any Kamloops fans who were happy about the swap. I think if you're only looking at stats then I can see why this deal looks bad for the Blazers - they dealt two 30-40 goal forwards for a forward who doesn't have 20 goals in his career and an largely unproven 17 year old defenceman. Thing is, there are players whose value to a team greatly exceeds the number of goals they score....the Blazers are getting two awesome character kids who have been part of a winning team and a winning culture for 1.5 and 2.5 seasons now....kids who have won eight playoff series between them whereas the Blazers as a team haven't won one in ten years. Seems to me like maybe Kamloops needs more kids who score 15 goals and have the winning attitude and less kids who score 30 goals and never win anything.
The Hamonic deal: Brandon had to pay through the nose for Hamonic - one first and two second round bantam picks, plus a decent young defenceman in Erhardt. No single player cost more in trade this season, not even close. I was surprised at the price....but Hamonic is definitely in the top five defencemen in the entire league and if Brandon wins at the Memorial Cup because of this deal, then nobody with the Wheat Kings will have a single regret about the price. For Moose Jaw, they now have four picks in the first two rounds of this year's draft, and 11 picks in the first six rounds. They are going to get some good future players this May for sure.
The Sbisa deal - the deal can probably be broken down as Berglund for the 5th round pick, and Sbisa and the swap of import picks for Johnston. Johnston is going to be a good defenceman in the WHL for a couple years yet and Portland is obviously gambling that another top-ten pick in the import draft can land them another impact player (ie, another Niedereiter) to offset the loss of Johnston the next couple years. If that works out, or if Sbisa helps the Hawks win a few playoff rounds, then losing Johnston won't hurt so much. If the import pick is a dud and Sbisa doesn't help Portland win anything though....then not a good deal for them at all.
The Vancouver-Edmonton deal - the Giants wanted to get bigger and grittier and they did. For Edmonton, this deal is all about the draft picks since at most one of the five players involved (Piluso) is even going to be in the WHL next year.
9 comments:
As much as the big deals are nice to write about. One has to think there will be at least one "smaller" deal that you can look back on and say WOW, how did we do that. Would be fun to look at some past deadlines and see what minor moves turned out to be huge, and what big moves turned into busts.
Absolutely....every year there's a few 5th, 6th, 7th round draft picks who emerge as stars.
If one of those "lesser" deals yesterday featured a late pick that turns out to be a star....you have a pretty major deal out of something that looked like a throwaway deal at the time.
What are the odds we can find an updated 50 man list somewhere
Blades loaded up on even more grit and added a real darkhorse up front in Viedensky. Viedensky will do well in Stoon and you add in Acolatse and Gogol to to with Darian Dzuirzynski and McNaught...I sure wouldn't count the Blades out just yet, especially when Hamilton returns very soon....All this and they didn't deal a 1st or 2nd rounder away or anyone who is a key prospect or player off their list.
Ty
The lists to the right of the blog is out of date... do they get updated often or is that something that is extremely hard to get ahold of.
Quick comment from Portland on the Sbisa deal... I view it as Johnston (a 5th round selection) for the 5th and Berglund for Sbisa and the 30-40 position upgrade in the upcoming import draft... While i think it's unlikely the Hawks will come up with another Niederreiter in the import draft, it would seem as though they'd be able to find a significantly better player than they would 40 positions later... Combine that with the fact the Hawks are loaded with 92 age players, and have #1 overall pick Derrick Pouliot coming in to play defense next year, the depth of the organisation allowed the loss of Johnston to be less signficant... He will be missed, but at the 92 age group the Hawks already have Joe Morrow and Troy Rutkowski who received more playing time... There would have been a significant logjam in defenseman next season if Johnston were to stay, so the Hawks decided to make the move now, because they feel their organisational depth will be able to cover for the loss of a skilled and good young talent in Daniel Johnston...
Todd - you can look at it that way, but Johnston for a 5th is a huge ripoff in Lethbridge's favor and Sbisa and the pick swap for Berglund is a huge ripoff in Portland's favor.
Which is why I broke it into two deals which I thought were fairly even.....
And for the commenters wondering about the PPLs - if I do them again, it won't be until the summer. It's definitely a once-a-year thing around here.
Ahhh, thanks for letting us know about he lists.
I just saw a few things on there that was a little off. So I was curious.
Thanks for all your work on the WHL it is always a great read.
Shawn
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