Ray Shero made his first trade as GM of the New Jersey Devils this past weekend when he acquired Kyle Palmieri from the Anaheim Ducks.
Going back the other way was a 2nd round pick in the 2015 draft and a conditional 3rd round pick (New Jersey's choice) in 2016.
Palmieri isn't a big name but his production over the last couple years has been quite encouraging -- particularly at even-strength.
Let's take a closer look.
As you can see Palmieri has produced points at a comparable rate to Paul Stastny, Milan Lucic and Zach Parise, among others, since the beginning of the 2013-14 season.
Palmieri has played less minutes than several of those players but the sample size (over 1,400 ES minutes) is large enough to tell us he's a legitimately good player and his sustainable shooting percentages - he hovers around 10% - suggest his production is no fluke.
Palmieri is a capable passer but most importantly he can score goals.
Note: numbers again span from 2013-2015. Those are some pretty good names to be bunched in with.
Palmieri's raw totals from last season - 14 goals and 29 points in 57 games - don't look all that impressive but at that pace he'd have scored 20 goals and recorded 41 points in 82 games.
Palmieri currently carries a $1.46 million cap hit but is in line for a pretty big raise next summer when he becomes a restricted free agent. That's part of the reason Ducks GM Bob Murray decided to trade Palmieri.
Bob Murray said he traded Kyle Palmieri because he thinks he'll score 20 goals next season and he won't be able to sign him if he does.
— Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) June 27, 2015Murray is probably right in saying Palmieri will score 20 goals next year. He likely would have done so this past season had he dressed in all 82 games. That's impressive when you factor in he was playing somewhat limited minutes while stuck behind Corey Perry and Jakob Silfverberg on the depth chart.
Palmieri's HERO chart tells us exactly what the rest of the numbers did: he's a good player who produces at a solid rate but needs more ice time in order to break out.
His production rivals that of a 1st line winger but he's been getting bottom-6 ice time.
Admittedly he isn't very good in terms of possession so he'll probably need to play with a center that is (i.e. Travis Zajac). No. 19 would be able to help shelter him in the defensive zone and he's a good enough distributor that he'll able to get Palmieri the puck in danger zones.
There's really not much to dislike about this trade. Palmieri is a local guy, which seems to excite some fans, but most importantly he's a good player.
At 24 he still has his best days in front of him and all the numbers suggest he'll be able to boost New Jersey's 28th ranked offense.
When you factor in all it took to bring Palmieri to New Jersey is ~20 games of Jaromir Jagr (the Devils fetched a 2015 2nd, 2016 3rd for him) it's hard not to like this trade.
Note: All numbers via Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. Recent posts