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BREAKING: Connolly Traded to Boston, Coburn Acquired from Flyers

March 2, 2015, 1:38 AM ET [229 Comments]
Michael Stuart
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
According to Sportsnet's Chris Johnston, the Tampa Bay Lightning have dealt forward Brett Connolly to the Boston Bruins in exchange for two second round picks and acquired defenseman Braydon Coburn from the Philadelphia Flyers for a first round pick, third round pick, and Radko Gudas. These moves come after Eklund reported that the Bolts were interested in Coburn this afternoon.




Seeing as these are two separate deals, it makes sense to analyze them individually.

Deal #1
To Boston: Brett Connolly
To Tampa Bay: Boston's 2015 2nd Round Pick, Boston's 2016 2nd Round Pick


Frequent readers know that this blogger is a big Brett Connolly fan. In 50 games played with the Bolts this year, the 2010 sixth overall pick tallied 12 goals and three assists. Those totals aren't particularly impressive, but when you dig a little bit deeper it becomes apparent that Connolly brings a lot to the table.

Playing largely in a botton-six role for Jon Cooper's club, Connolly established himself as a possession driver. As of writing time, and per Puckalytics.com, Connolly sits third on the Lightning in Corsi-for percentage (55.8%) among players who have played 300-plus five-on-five minutes. That puts him ahead of names like Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Victor Hedman, and Steven Stamkos, among others. You don't replace minutes like that easily.

Further, he has also solidified his presence as one of the league's most efficient goal scorers. Using goals per 60 minutes of play at five-on-five as a metric, Connolly ranks ahead of names like Patrick Kane, James Neal, Tyler Johnson, and Ryan Getzlaf. Among NHL players who have played at least 300 minutes at five-on-five this season, he ranks 16th in that category. Impressive would be a good descriptor.

What is abundantly clear here is that the Lightning gave up a very good player who is still growing. He was never given a fair shot in Tampa, and yet he produced. The Bruins acquired a great hockey player with high-end potential. The question that will be answered in time is whether they overpaid, underpaid, or hit the mark.

Over the course of his tenure as Lightning General Manager, Steve Yzerman has treated draft picks like gold. He's stockpiled them, and used them to build one of the league's most impressive young cores. From that perspective, this deal makes sense. The trouble, however, is that Connolly was part of that young core. As the numbers shown above highlight, he was just starting to figure things out at the NHL level. The potential for him was sky high. I'm just not sure that acquiring unknowns (what will likely be late second round picks) for him makes a whole lot of sense, especially when you consider that the Bolts are gearing up for a run. That is, unless there's more to come tomorrow. I'll get to that in a moment.

Deal #2
To Philadelphia: 2015 1st Round Pick, 2015 3rd Round Pick, Radko Gudas
To Tampa Bay: Braydon Coburn


This deal strikes me as weird. Ignoring roster consideration, and from a cost perspective, it makes a little bit of sense. The Lightning had a first round pick to spare, the third round pick wasn't worth a ton, and Radko Gudas was always overrated by the Tampa faithful. Coburn, 30, has one year left on a deal that pays him $4.5-million. The left-handed defenseman has been one of Philadelphia's better possession players this season.

Still, I don't get it. Those roster considerations get in the way. Does Coburn fit the bill as that top-four, right-hander the team has been searching for? Nope. Is he going to be their long-lost power play quarterback? Doubtful. He doesn't really fill a need. He is an upgrade on Gudas, Barberio, and Sustr, but is he the right fit? Moreover, it's hard to pinpoint what he can bring to the Lightning that Matt Carle won't once he's healthy again. Given all this, it's hard to believe that the cost to acquire Coburn is worth the potential benefit for Tampa Bay.

--

Those questions, along with some of the points brought up when discussing the first deal, lead me to believe that we might see more from the Lightning before the clock strikes deadline o'clock. Specifically, I'm wondering about Coburn and one of those second round picks. Yzerman hasn't been shy about admitting that he'd like to add a right-handed defender prior to the deadline, and the price for a guy like Edmonton's Jeff Petry has been rumored to be in that second round pick neighborhood; Edmonton has reportedly also been seeking a defenceman in their package for Petry. Or perhaps this fits into a larger package for a guy like James Wisniewski. Maybe there's something there, maybe there isn't. If there isn't anything else, I'll be disappointed by tonight's deals.

I'll have more as this story unfolds throughout the day.

As always, thanks for reading.

Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter.
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