The draft-day trade that sent Mike Ribeiro to the Washington Capitals created a huge need for the Dallas Stars to add a playmaking center to their top two forward lines. Yesterday, Joe Nieuwendyk attempted to fill that need with the acquisition of Derek Roy from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Steve Ott and Adam Pardy.
Roy is coming off a poor season for an underachieving Sabres team and was lost for most of the previous campaign after sustaining a torn quadriceps. Nevertheless, over the balance of his NHL career, the undersized but clever pivot has been an effective offensive player. Assuming he bounces back to his more accustomed form next season, Roy is eminently capable of racking up 25-plus goals and 45-plus assists in a given season.
With the free agent signing of 40-year-old winger Ray Whitney on Sunday, the Stars have bolstered the offensive capabilities of their top two forward lines. I figure that Whitney and Roy will play on different lines most of the time, both because they each excel at passing the puck and also because a line with the two of them would give away too much size in any defensive situation.
As I see it, the default top six will be Jamie Benn, Loui Eriksson and Whitney on one line, with Roy centering Michael Ryder and Brenden Morrow (assuming the captain is healthy and is not traded) on the second scoring line. It's not a bad mix, and I think Roy can click as well with Ryder as Ribeiro did both in Montreal and Dallas.
Unfortunately, the cost of obtaining Roy was high. Much of the team's "Pesky Stars" identity -- which spurred the club to become the NHL's top third-period comeback team over the past two years -- was forged by Ott and other club leaders. Without question, Ott is going to be sorely missed in Big D.
Ott was a player whose value really couldn't be measured in stats: he was a physical and emotional tone-setter, a world-class agitator, a player who could be plugged into a variety of roles or game situations, an had evolved into a locker room spokesman and leader. As much as he got under the skin of opposing players and was widely disliked elsewhere for some of his on-ice antics, he was also the type of player that everyone wanted on their own side.
Unlike former Star Sean Avery, to whom he often gets compared, you never hear former teammates say anything but positive things about the experience of playing with Ott. He has no aspirations to be anything but a hockey player, and does not put his own agendas in front of the team's needs (on or off the ice). Even opponents who detest Ott on the ice respect him as a person off the ice.
Another potential downside to the trade: Roy can be an unrestricted free agent next summer while Ott is signed until 2013-14. The former Buffalo player carries a $4 million cap hit. Ott makes $2.95 million. However, the Stars actually ended up taking on less salary than they traded away, by virtue of getting the Sabres to take Pardy off their hands as part of the deal.
The big defenseman was one of the relatively few Nieuwendyk signings that simply flopped. Signed to a two-year contract at a $2 million cap hit per season, Pardy was brought in to help solidify the Stars' third pairing. It didn't work out, and he ended up a spare part. Pardy dressed in 36 games last season.
With the departures of Ott and Adam Burish, the Stars have lost quite a bit of sandpaper and grit in the lineup while getting smaller and more skilled. It is my hope that the club will use some of the money it needs to spend to get to the cap floor in order to get a little tougher and bigger in the bottom six in the lineup.
There is also a huge need to fill Sheldon Souray's spot on the blueline, and the remaining defensive nucleus (Alex Goligoski, Stephane Robidas, Trevor Daley, young Philip Larsen) is largely undersized. Only Mark Fistric and new addition Aaron Rome bring any size or snarl to the back end.
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