Yesterday the Flyers sent former 37 goal scorer Scott Hartnell to the Blue Jackets in exchange for R.J Umberger and a 4th round pick. The trade has basically been universally panned. Apparently, Ron Hextall's first trade as Flyer's GM is a huge one-sided disaster.
The thinking is that Hartnell had more points last year than Umberger, and was a useful player despite the drop in goal scoring because his advanced stats suggest that he was in fact a positive addition to the lineup. Conversely, Umberger scored less and was a healthy scratch at times and had terrible advanced stats.
I am not going to argue with that. It's a sensible way to look at things: Emotions removed, the Flyers traded an objectively better player for an objectively worse player. Stats can be used out of context and can be misleading, but this seems like a pretty open and shut case.
If you click this link, you'll see a nice little chart demonstrating the stats of each player, as well as a very telling headline.
http://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/525441
Now, as easy as it is to jump on the narrative bandwagon, I think it's important to remember a couple of things. 1) Initial narratives rarely mesh with reality. 2) Ron Hextall is not an idiot. He might not prove to be a great GM, but obviously he has an army of scouts and advisers and the hockey commentators of the world don't have access to any information he doesn't also have.
So, while I don't necessarily think the Flyers won the trade, I think it's worth trying to see it from their perspective before declaring it a massive win for the Jackets.
Like I said off the top, a look at the statistics shows that Hartnell was a better player, in nearly every regard, than Umberger was last season. Hartnell also has a history of goal scoring, potting a career high 37 two seasons ago.
So why would the Flyers make this trade?
While I don't know, I can speculate.
1) They know both players intimately. Umberger used to be a Flyer before joining the Blue Jackets, and so before we jump all over Hextall, I think it's important to remember that the Flyers probably know both players better than anyone in the hockey world- bloggers, Tweeters and the Blue Jackets alike.
2) Scott Hartnell had to waive his no trade clause on a contract he only recently signed. This is a red-flag to me because it clearly indicates that Hartnell has personal issues within the team. I don't want to speculate on what, because how would I know?, but it could be the coach, the players, the GM - basically it's something and we'll probably never know. It could be something as simple and un-interesting as them not seeing him in a top 3 or 6 role and him disagreeing.
3) A lot of advanced stats, hell any stats actually, are dependent on who you play with. Hartnell got a lot of PP time and played a lot of minutes with Claude Giroux, one of the best players in the world. As far as I know, RJ Umberger did not get a lot of minutes with any of the best players in the NHL. This might not be a huge factor, but it does matter.
You could argue that this makes the two players a little closer than they at first appear.
4) Speed. R.J Umberger is a fast player who plays the game tenaciously. So does Hartnell, but he is slower. This is pure speculation, but with the speed of Umberger's game, and keeping in mind the Flyers know exactly who and what they are getting better than anyone else, he might be a perfect fit on a line with Sean Couturier and Matt Read to create a shut-down line that can score some goals.
5) The Flyers have Wayne Simmonds and it's possible that they feel what used to be Hartnell's minutes on the first line and the power-play would be better used at this point by him.
6) With Schenn, Voracek, Giroux, Simmonds and Lecavelier, the Flyers only have one more spot at this time on their top six. Moving out Hartnell allows them to try to either add another player or insert one of their prospects, like Scott Laughton or player like Mike Raffl into that role.
7) The Contract status. Hartnell and Umberger make roughly the same money, but Hartnell has two extra years on his deal, meaning the Flyers do save money on this trade. Also, if you look at Hartnell, while his peripheral stats remain strong, he has had a drop in goal scoring over the last two years of almost half. Yes, his shooting % was low this year, but it's too easy to just write that off 100% to luck, especially for a guy who excels in scoring garbage goals where the goalie is not going to save them regardless.
8) Clearly the Flyers didn't just move Hartnell to the first team that would take him, so I think it's fair to say that they established his trade value and it wasn't high. So,taking on a reclamation project who is cheaper and slots in better on your third line, especially a guy you already know very well, isn't the worst idea in the world.
Finally, I think you will see that if you look deeper than just the surface of what Hartnell for Umberger sounds like, you can see it wasn't really that bad of a trade. No, I'm not willing to say it was a win for the Flyers, but I also am not willing to act like I know better than a guy who was just hired as the GM - he clearly had his reasons for making this trade and I think it pays to look into them rather than just get on board with a cheap narrative - one, I might add, that began on Twitter about five minutes after the news broke, which means it wasn't exactly well thought out.
Thanks for reading.