It’s no secret that the Senators are spending the least amount of money in the entire league, and they might be looking at different ways to reach the mandatory cap floor, projected to be in the low $60M range. They could simply sign a few players to contracts larger than expected, but one avenue that would be smart to take is trading for players with bad contracts so that Ottawa can also receive a pick or prospect as an incentive. I will talk more specifically about which players around the league that they could target another day, but one name that keeps coming up is Milan Lucic.
I saw this idea from Jonathan Willis recently, which got me thinking about acquiring Lucic:
Crazy hypothetical worth thinking about: a July 2 Bobby Ryan-for-Milan Lucic trade.
— Jonathan Willis (@JonathanWillis) May 27, 2019
OTT gets:
- $24MM cap hit
- $16MM real money
EDM gets:
- $21.75MM cap hit
- $20.5MM real money
Most importantly, Ryan could be bought out in the summer of 2020 at actual savings.
Ottawa would get the higher cap hit which they need, plus Eugene Melnyk would love being able to save real dollars in this deal. However, Lucic also has four more years left on his deal compared to Ryan’s three, plus he is already worse and it doesn’t look like his downward spiral is slowing down. He is actually a year younger than Ryan at 31, but he had a paltry 20 points in 79 games, whereas Ryan at least had a more respectable 42 points in 78 games. If Edmonton gave up another piece in this deal such as a prospect or a draft pick, then I would be more eager to get it done, but I don’t think they should be moving Ryan in a trade such as this.
At the same time, it still might be smart for the Senators to acquire Lucic.
That contract is truly one of the worst in the league with a $6M cap hit for the next four seasons, and he is essentially a 4th line player who cannot keep up anymore. He was a great power forward in his heyday, but he was never going to be a player who was going to age gracefully due to his size and how tough he played. The funny thing is that allegedly before Peter Chiarelli was fired, he was asking teams for a massive package in exchange for Lucic...despite him having no value whatsoever:
From an Oilers blogger who's broken some stuff before:
— James (@Account4hockey) May 25, 2019
Chiarelli wanted a 1st, a B grade prospect and a top 6 forward for Lucic. pic.twitter.com/iRYBSccM7D
I’m not sure if that is 100% accurate, but it sounds believable that Chiarelli would not want to move Lucic unless he got what he would have gotten for him as if it is 2013. Who knows how Ken Holland feels about Lucic, although I can’t imagine he is eager to keep that contract around. If Ottawa would actually have to give up anything of value in order to take on this contract, then this discussion is obviously moot point.
But if the Senators would be able to get a prospect and/or a pick, I say they should go for it. Four more years on his contract is less than ideal, but the next two years (at least) won’t matter in terms of having enough cap space because the team won’t be good, so I wouldn’t worry about the term too much.
Some similar cap dump trades include deals for Marian Hossa, Bryan Bickell, and David Clarkson, with more to surely come in the near future. Arizona received Vinnie Hinostroza, Jordan Oesterle, and a 3rd round pick for taking on Hossa, but they also gave up Marcus Kruger, a 5th round pick, Andrew Campbell, Jordan Maletta, and prospect MacKenzie Entwistle in the deal. Entwistle is the only piece that might actually be anything more than a 4th line player, so Arizona was able to receive two good depth players and moved up in the draft just by taking on the final three seasons of his contract with a cap hit of $5.275M.
Carolina did extremely well by taking on just the final year of Bickell’s contract with a $4M cap hit, as they also received Teuvo Teravainen and just had to give up a 2nd and 3rd round pick. Teravainen hadn’t broken out just yet, but he was a former top prospect at the age of 22 and had plenty of upside. Lastly, the initial Clarkson trade to Columbus doesn’t really fall in line with what Ottawa will probably do, as Toronto received Nathan Horton’s problematic contract in return.
However, the Blue Jackets would later trade him to Vegas along with a 1st and 2nd round pick so that the Golden Knights would select William Karlsson in the expansion draft. Eesh. Obviously that’s a bit of a different scenario where Columbus didn’t have much leverage, but that’s still an incredibly good return just for taking on the final three years of a deal with a cap hit of $5.25M. It’s hard to say what the Senators could receive in addition to Lucic, but they should probably be asking for a prospect such as Tyler Benson or Cooper Marody or a high draft pick just because of how much term is left on his contract. Or maybe even someone like Jesse Puljujarvi could get involved if Ottawa would be willing to sweeten the deal on their side a bit.
As with any exercises where we talk about potential trade scenarios, it’s a huge guessing game. I’m sure any proposals by Oilers and Senators fans would get laughed at by the other side more often than not.
There’s a chance that the Oilers still see Lucic as a player who brings an important element to their team and that it isn’t worth it to give him up plus another asset or two just to get rid of his contract. In that case, talks with the Senators are bound to go nowhere. Perhaps the two teams have already had discussions that have gone nowhere, although there haven’t been many rumours about that. This whole hypothetical depends on how Edmonton values Lucic, which might actually end up being too high to make it worthwhile for Ottawa.