It's starting to hit the fan in Winnipeg. The whole Trouba contract thing is all anyone wants to talk except Trouba's agent or Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff. Even the likes of stalwart reporter
Gary Lawless is having fun with the rampant speculation and trying to find some brevity in the confusion and lack of information.
If you want to listen to his show, Hustler and Lawless, you can tune in
RIGHT HERE
There's good stuff and some of it with Dave Poulin of TSN later in the show. Poulin had some interesting thoughts and one may have the sense that he seems a bit bitter about how contracts are handed out to the youth in the NHL today.
Poulin's point is that when a young, 3rd year player, puts up the number he gets the deal and he said Trouba has not. He's right and compared to Monahan and Scheifele Poulin has a fair point but it got a little odd after that. If you want a time marker tune in at 1 hour 43 minute mark for Poulin.
Gary and Dave and a good back and forth and to credit Lawless he was bang on with his statement that Trouba's numbers go way up when he's not with Stuart. Poulin's response was that Trouba should then give the coach no choice but to play him at the top with those players, and like Lawless, that's a fair point too. He followed it up with the idea that a player is under management's control for 7 years and that until he does management can control the contract.
This is the old way of thinking and Poulin does not get it. What we know, and this information is available everywhere, is this: players start to decline somewhere around 28-30 depending on their individual attributes. If you get a player in the NHL who can play at age 19-21 you want to be paying him for his peak time, not after you feel he has earned it. The good agents know this and I'm sure Trouba's agent, Kurt Overhardt, is preaching this to the Jets.
Poulin said that Trouba should show his worth, take the two-year bridge deal and force the hand of the team to pay him the money. Sure but how does that happen with Stuart as your linemate, an anchorno Jet has been able to lift up off the ocean floor since 2011.
Herein lies the conundrum with Trouba and why this deal is far trickier to envision because it may involve something no player or agent should dictate to a team- how and where to use the player. Certainly there have been sales pitches and such to players about usage and such but what happens when the coach's neck is on the line as Paul Maurice's is?
You get something that looks like this, a contract stalemate. Lawless was again bang one when he said 'how do you get the coach to agree to ice time and playing partners? If he sees Trouba as a third pairing defensemen then that's where he should be'.
The thing with Trouba is this- he's getting minutes.
Last season a 5v5 the Jets D played this order for players above 1000 minutes
Byfuglien 1490:38
Trouba 1394:32
Myers 1246:03
Enstrom 1232:45
Here's the PP numbers
Byfuglien 257:58
Myers 164:13
Trouba 102:11
Here's the PK
Trouba 211:23
Stuart 178:42
Myers: 147:16
Byfuglien: 154:16
Enstrom 105:34
So what we see here is that Trouba is basically the number two guy after Byfuglien in usage and what Poulin wants to see is numbers? Okay.
Trouba vs Myers
Trouba vs Enstrom
Trouba vs Stuart
Last year Trouba played the most defines minutes with Stuart by 116 more than with the next most frequent player Byfuglien and 300 minutes more than what he played with Myers.
Trouba's 3 year history with the Jets has seen him play 2050:26 with Stuart and only 829:49 with Buff, a player he compliments well and helps bring the most out of almost always.
What's crazy is that he has only played 272 minutes with Myers!! So in Trouba's case he and his agent might have a point about where he is played and because the Jets are married to Stuart and have not been able to produce anything stable to shore up the bottom pair he as the low guy on the totem pole plays that role. Imagine what Stuart would be without Trouba- no wait don't he's still got two more years!
What you're seeing now is the jockeying around this deal and for Trouba to take the risk of a two year deal when this is what he gets in terms of help is a bit too much of a risk- Poulin should know that. Basically what more can Trouba do other than score more points? Perhaps shore up his shot suppression but then again...Mark Stuart.
Stuart's Corsi is at 50.5 with Trouba when apart Trouba goes to 53.5 and Stuart drops to 46!!
Yes it's all Mark Stuart's fault. Well of course not but the depth of the Jets, or lack of it on defence is where the issues really start and in all honesty, why not put Trouba up with Enstrom or Buff and drop Myers back to the third pairing? I think you know the answer to that and it's why Trouba should get the big(ger) money because of what he's done in spite of the situation he's in. Dave Poulin does not get that.
Oh yeah, Bill Waters said Trouba wants out of Winnipeg on the noon show with Rick Ralph yesterday. Take that for what it's worth.
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