Now that the 1st round of the Playoffs is coming to a close, the teams who have bowed out of the first round are going to be doing some soul searching. They weren’t good enough. They didn’t get the job done. Detroit, New York, and the Kings managed just 1 win each in the second season. Changes are coming.
Tis the season for rampant speculation, and sometimes people get a little carried away. For example, Larry Brooks
actually suggested that the Rangers could trade defenseman Ryan McDonagh to the Oilers and the conversation should include their top 5 pick in this year’s draft AND one of RNH, Leon Draisaitl, or Taylor Hall.
This year’s first-rounder — which will be overall pick Nos. 1-5 as determined by this coming Saturday’s lottery drawing — would necessarily have to be part of the conversation. So would Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Taylor Hall.
He made a few other suggestions that make me pretty sure he didn’t get anybody to proof-read his piece before it was submitted, but just for fun why don’t we douse this with cold water.
Let’s start with the facts. Ryan McDonagh is one heck of a left-handed defenseman. Any team would be lucky to have him. He’s a great 5v5 point producer and always uses his signal lights when changing lanes. There is nothing wrong with Ryan McDonagh the player.
McDonagh even has 3 more years left on a deal that only costs his team 4.7 million on the Cap. He’s a very, VERY reasonably priced defender. In the world of the modern NHL, a guy who can slot in on the top pairing at less than 5M is worth his weight in gold. For the Ranger defenseman, that’s roughly 216 pounds of gold (which, FYI, as per some scrap gold value websites will suggest is actually worth roughly 2.9 million).
McDonagh is an excellent player. He doesn’t seem to have great impact on possession based on his Corsi For Relative to Teammates over the past 3 seasons, but that’s just one metric. If he’s adding an appropriate level of offense, the fact that he doesn’t keep the puck out of his own zone extremely well can be forgiven.
The issue with the proposed trade by Brooks isn’t that McDonagh isn’t very good. He’s fine. The problem is that the pieces he wants in return are better and McDonagh doesn’t actually give the Oilers anything they need.
Edmonton needs defense, no doubt, but they need another left-handed defender like they need another former Dynasty Oiler running the team again.
They have Oscar Klefbom, who by eye and by number is a great candidate to play on the top pair. This kid is a stud defenseman in the making. After him, only going down the left side of the ice, the team then has Andrej Sekera to anchor the 2nd pair, and that’s only until Darnell Nurse elevates past him, assuming Brandon Davidson is done progressing, and Griffin Reinhart doesn’t make huge strides this summer.
The left side is fine.
The right side is the blazing tire-fire that needs attention.
So right from outset the proposed deal isn’t addressing Edmonton’s area of weakness. It would require the Oilers to make ANOTHER deal that actually fixes what’s wrong with the team.
Now, as for asking for 1 of Hall, Draisaitl, or RNH, any one of them would be an overpayment for McDonagh, who isn’t really considered one of the NHL’s truly elite defenseman anywhere outside of New York.
Starting with the player Ranger fans seem the least excited about, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is going to be Edmonton’s 2C for a long time playing behind McDavid. He’s also the oldest center available who can play in all three zones. Trading him would create a terrible hole on the roster. Trading him for someone who the team doesn’t even need would be a mistake of nightmarish proportions.
Leon Draisaitl isn’t even on the table. In his first “full” year in the NHL he produced 19-32-51 in 72GP as a 20 year old. He can play center or on the wing and had stellar chemistry with Taylor Hall. It is not unreasonable to assume that the coaching staff of the Oilers plans to use him similarly to the way they used Joe Pavelski in San Jose. This is something that came up several times over the year and they explicitly described him as a “Forward”, not a “Center” or “Winger”. They made the distinction clear that he could be slotted in anywhere.
He’s the broad shouldered, heavy, possession positive player the Oilers have been dreaming of for years. If he’s being dealt, it isn’t for McDonagh.
The Taylor Hall suggestion is a lark. Taylor Hall is one of the game’s best LWs. He is a possession driving winger who can carry the puck from his own zone and set up shop in the attacking end. For most of this season he was top 5 in 5v5 points per 60 minutes before a slump took him down to 8th among forwards (min 1000 minutes). That’s just for this season.
Over the last 4 seasons, Hall ranks 3rd among forwards in points per 60 minutes with a minimum of 3000 minutes played. Taylor Hall is an elite scoring player in the NHL and entering the prime years of his career. He’s been falsely equated with losing because his team has been hot garbage whenever he wasn’t on the ice for the most-part. If Chiarelli trades Taylor Hall for a 2nd tier talent like McDonagh then this team isn’t getting anywhere in a hurry.
Finally, that top 5 pick could become Matthews, Laine, or Puljujarvi at the completion of the Draft lottery. These are big, talented forwards who could slot in on McDavid’s wing for the next decade. Maybe if the Oilers miss out on the top three, but inside that top 3 it’s going to take a lot more than McDonagh to give up the goods.
The pick AND one of Edmonton’s best young players?
Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
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