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Absolutely No Foresight in Turris for Duchene Trade

February 18, 2019, 2:02 AM ET [89 Comments]
Trevor Shackles
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS

Look, this isn’t going to come as surprising to anybody, but the Senators clearly mangled the entire Matt Duchene saga in Ottawa. He hasn’t been traded just yet, but he is a UFA in the summer, and all signs point to contract talks going nowhere. Hence, he will be moved before the trade deadline just one week from today:




Everybody knows why this is the situation because it all traces back to Eugene Melnyk. It’s easy to look at the results of the trade that brought Duchene here and laugh at how bad things are, but I think it’s also important to acknowledge the utter incompetence for the lack of foresight that this franchise showed with this trade. At the time, I had mixed feelings about it because they upgraded their team but I also didn’t love giving up two draft picks plus a former first round pick. I knew that Duchene was a free agent in 2019, but the organization had not gone down the tubes just yet, so there was no assumption that re-signing him was going to be impossible. It was a risky trade, but Ottawa was a decent team that just needed to supplant their core with better depth pieces, so their first round pick didn’t seem like a huge deal.

We all know that’s not how things turned out though.

It’s almost a certainty that the Senators will be giving up a top-4 pick this draft, meaning they will have given up that top pick in addition to Kyle Turris, Shane Bowers, Andrew Hammond, and a 3rd round pick (Justus Annunen) just for Duchene. If he was re-signed and was able to be a part of the rebuild as well as their “competitive window” between 2021-25, then it would still be a tough pill to swallow, but not nearly as bad because they would at least have a first line player on their team. However, the only thing they are going to have to show for all those assets they gave up are the few pieces they receive for Duchene at the deadline.

Sure, Ottawa might be able to get something along the lines of a late first round pick, a solid prospect, and a lesser prospect or later pick, but that pales in comparison to what they gave up---which could include either Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko.

There are two reasons to be displeased with the thought process behind bringing in Duchene: first of all, Pierre Dorion severely miscalculated how good the Senators were, which meant that he had to give up their pick in 2019 instead of 2018. I don’t think anybody thought they were going to be the 2nd worst team in the league last year, but after their run to the Conference Finals in 2017, he should have tried to add to the roster so that they could get over the hump, rather than sit on his hands and hope that they would magically improve (even though they had already wildly surpassed their expectations in 2016-17). Adding Duchene is certainly one way to help the team, but there were other clear holes throughout the roster that were not addressed. Most of us would be lying if we said we thought the first round pick they gave up was going to be extremely high, but it was also fair at the time to question why Dorion was willing to give up that pick as a sign of “going for it” but not do anything else besides that.

A second reason to be displeased with the trade is that the team knew Duchene was a free agent in 2019, less than two years away. Melnyk knew the financial situation that he was in, and he also knew that Duchene was going to be asking for a lot of money on a new contract. Sure, he has been better than people expected with 56 points in 49 games, but even if he was a 60-65 point player, he was going to get handsomely paid. So why would Melnyk sign off on a mega-deal like this, knowing that it was unlikely that they were going to keep him around?

It is such an oddly timed trade because just a few weeks later is when everything began crumbling down, with the team beginning to be dismantled in February. Just three months after making a big splash by acquiring the hottest name on the trade market, Ottawa was in a “rebuild.” That shows all you need to know about the lack of foresight that this organization had.

I understand that the Kyle Turris situation was tricky because they didn’t want to lose him for nothing, but they also wanted to stay competitive, and getting Duchene should have done that. They also didn’t expect to fall out of the playoff picture so quickly, and it would have been odd to sell Turris for picks and prospects in November while they had playoff aspirations. At the same time, if Dorion had waited until January or even December to see where the team was at, maybe he would have been willing to do that. If Turris was traded for future assets instead, here is what Ottawa could theoretically have that they don’t have right now:

-Shane Bowers
-Sam Girard
-Vladislav Kamenev (or lesser prospect/pick)
-2018 Nashville first round pick
-2019 own first round pick
-2018 own third round pick

The return for Turris wouldn’t have been exactly the same (nor quite as good) as what Colorado got for Duchene, but they still would have gotten a few solid assets like Girard and/or Kamenev. They would not have either Turris or Duchene, but they won’t have either of them in a weeks time anyway. Not having Bowers, Girard, Kamenev, and an extra first round pick is obviously bad but it isn’t horrendous, although having their own first round pick this season would have been a game-changer. That’s really what tips the scales on this trade, bringing it from bad to disastrous.

As with any trade, it’s easy to look back and criticize teams because of how certain things turned out. There were positives and negatives of the deal at the time, and it clearly has gone as bad as one could possibly imagine for the Senators. What is indisputable too is that Ottawa had no foresight whatsoever by not recognizing how good their team truly was, as well as not recognizing that Duchene was going to cost a lot of money, and players aren’t going to be willing to stay with a team that does not spend to keep its best players.

It was exciting to acquire Duchene at the time, but that could easily turn out to be one of the worst moves in franchise history.
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