Pierre Dorion’s Ottawa Senators were busy in advance of Monday’s trade deadline, which can only be described as a net positive for the rebuilding effort. Minor deals like the one that sent Vladislav Namestnikov to Colorado and Tyler Ennis to Edmonton came and went without much fanfare, but his deal of J-G Pageau to the New York Islanders generated all the right kind of attention. It was a massive win for Dorion and the franchise’s future, and continues to look better with Pageau signing a lengthy and costly extension with his new team.
With so many conflicting reports coming out of Ottawa in the run up to the deadline, it’s worth taking a step back to look at how we arrived at this point. There was plenty of talk that the Senators were on the verge of re-signing Pageau, or that they would be okay with keeping him through the deadline without an extension in place. During TSN’s broadcast of Monday’s game, it was suggested that the team had a five-year, ~$20M extension in discussion as late as Sunday that was ultimately rejected by the player. Once the Senators realized that they weren’t going to get Pageau signed at a number that they were comfortable with, the decision to pull the trigger on a trade appears to have been made.
It’s a little bit funny to think that some of the same reasoning that was widely (and rightly) panned when it came to Ottawa’s trades of Erik Karlsson and Mark Stone – i.e. that they weren’t willing to spend the money necessary to keep them – came in tremendously handy here. Pageau is a wonderful player to watch, a player who bleeds Senators red on every shift, and a player who would have been a great presence to have around during the rebuild. At the same time, though, he’s also a third-line center having a career year thanks to a shooting percentage that sits around double his career average. Locking in an expensive contract extension for a player with that latter factor in play never made sense for this team.
Thankfully, Dorion was able to turn Pageau’s career year into a hefty return for his hockey club. The guaranteed first and second round picks obtained from the Islanders will go a long way in helping the Senators’ rebuilding efforts, and put the team in a position to have more than 10% of the total draft picks in June’s first two rounds. Seven picks in the first two rounds gives Ottawa’s amateur scouting staff ample opportunity to find gems that will turn this team into a contender down the road. Pageau, for all his strengths, will be a third line center on the wrong side of 30 when this team is ready to compete; the players selected with New York’s picks won’t be.
From New York’s perspective, it’s clear that this deal was viewed as a sign-and-trade of sorts. It was interesting that none of the picks dealt to Ottawa were conditional upon Pageau re-signing with them, and it didn’t take long for the hockey world to learn that was because the Islanders had clear and established intentions to re-sign the player immediately. Pageau signed a six-year, $30M contract with New York yesterday. They clearly see him as a player who can provide great moments in Islanders colours like he did with the Senators on so many occasions - just ask the Montreal Canadiens or New York Rangers about those!
While it’s impossible to know whether Pageau would have signed for less than $5M per season over six years in Ottawa, that range does give us some sense of what the player was looking for in extension talks with the team. With that in mind, the trade becomes an even bigger win for the Senators. Not only did they extract tremendous value from a player having a career year, in the form of a first and second round draft pick, but they also stopped themselves from overpaying for a third line centre who likely won't keep that level of production up moving forward. Dom Luszczyszyn’s model provides an objective look at things from that perspective:
The bottom line for Ottawa is that the Pageau deal made yesterday a great day for the organization. The only thing left to do now is cheer for Pageau as he begins his career as a New York Islander. He deserves an overwhelming reception when his new team visits the CTC on March 5, both for the tremendous amount of good he did on the ice and in the community.
As always, thanks for reading.
**REMINDER – The Senators are hosting their annual telethon in support of the Ottawa Senators Foundation this coming Thursday.**
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