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Methot to Stars - McPhee got hazed? Did the Sens (mean to) miss the boat?

June 27, 2017, 10:50 AM ET [53 Comments]
Jared Crozier
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Was it the NHL GM version of hazing the new guy? When George McPhee assembled his team and picked 13 defensemen, and in doing so passed over younger players with more upside in the process, I was wondering why. I didn't like the strategy, and in the week after it looks like some of the other 30 GM's might have used the expansion draft as a bit of an initiation ritual.

Before he made his selections, McPhee warned everyone he was going to load up on D-men, and that he did, taking the minimum number of forwards and goalies, and maxing out on blueliners. Now he is tasked with moving some of them for assets, and so far he has moved out 3 and got not so much in return. First he dealt Trevor van Riemsdyk to the Hurricanes, getting a second round pick in 2018. Then he dealt David Schlemko to Montreal for a 2018 5th round pick. And finally, the third blueliner moved last night as former Senator Marc Methot was dealt to Dallas for a 2nd round pick in 2020 and a goalie "prospect" who the Stars drafted just under 200th overall in the 7th round on Saturday.

Not exactly the bounty I am sure the Golden Knights were expecting. It is like the GM's artificially and intentionally pumped up the market on defensemen ahead of the expansion draft, and I don't think McPhee got even close to what he was expecting, especially since his apparent asking price of at least a first round pick in 2018 to leave him alone.

Now on to the Senators, who may have missed the boat as a popular misconception regarding re-acquiring expansion draft losses was clarified mid-afternoon. It was revealed by Bill Daly, deputy commissioner of the NHL, that there was no moratorium or ban on teams re-acquiring players that they had lost in the expansion draft, and the "Jan 1st" rule was for teams trading players to avoid having to expose them and then trading back for them after Vegas made their picks. That ruling seemed to come as a surprise to everyone, including seemingly at least some of the teams themselves.

Which makes me think that Ottawa might have been in a belt-tightening mode by exposing Methot once Dion Phaneuf chose to keep his no-move clause intact. I think the Senators wanted a financial reset by either losing Methot or Phaneuf's salary, and even if the asking price had gone down I am not sure Pierre Dorion would have paid the price, and I am not even sure he inquired as to the price to re-acquire him before the trade was made with the Stars mere hours after the interpretation of the trade ban was clarified.

And there might be a method to the madness. Methot's value was deemed essential to the Senators because of how he paired up with Erik Karlsson. But in fact, if you look at it from an analytics point of view, Erik Karlsson's possession numbers were better away from Methot than with him. When they were on the ice together, their Corsi% was 47% at 5 on5. Karlsson away from Methot, his possession numbers jump to 53.9%, not an insignificant difference. Karlsson's best partner, in terms of possession, was Freddie Claesson where they had a 57.5% Corsi rating (albeit in only 130+ minutes as opposed to the 923+ minutes of Karlsson-Methot). Even paired with Dion Phaneuf, Karlsson's corsi was higher than when paired with Methot.

And if you aren't a big believer in Corsi, or analytics, Karlsson scored 1.17 points/60 minutes while with Methot, 1.85 with Claesson and 2.33 with Dion Phaneuf.

So perhaps, despite being a heart and soul guy maybe it was Karlsson making Methot better after all, and realizing that and the $4.9M price tag Methot carries, made allowing him to leave town as plan B (with Phaneuf waiving his NMC as plan A) acceptable to the Senators management, and that the Methot money could be better spent elsewhere.


ALFIE PASSED OVER FIRST TIME

in case you missed it yesterday, Daniel Alfredsson was passed over in his first year of eligibility for the Hockey Hall of Fame. There was quite a debate, as I had expected, over his worthiness, and while some of it was juvenile (also as expected) there were some good points made both for and against. I think he will get in eventually, it just might be a case of being 3 or 4 years.

PYATT EXTENDED

The Senators did get one of their pending UFA's signed as they inked Tom Pyatt to a 2 year deal worth $2.2M. I said a couple of weeks ago that bringing him back at a decent price of $1M or less would have been a no-brainer, and this deal makes sense where he gets $1M this season and $1.2 the following one. A solid signing if they can play him in the right situations and they aren't forced to move him too high in the lineup like they had to at times last season.
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