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Armchair GM Part 2: Defense

June 18, 2019, 12:52 AM ET [17 Comments]
Trevor Shackles
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS

Last week I did part 1 of my armchair GM series where I discussed what I would do if I were the Senators GM and analyzed the forwards. Today, I’ll be looking at the defense and discussing the six moves that I would make over the course of the summer in even more detail than in part 1:

Re-sign Christian Wolanin for 2 years/$1M per year

The 24-year-old is an RFA this summer and has three seasons left before he hits free agency. He has only played 40 games over the past two seasons, but he would have played more if Belleville wasn’t trying to make the playoffs down the stretch. In that time, he has clearly been Ottawa’s 2nd or 3rd best defenseman, and I don’t need any more time to evaluate that he is clearly an NHL defenseman. By signing him for two years, Ottawa would still hold his RFA rights at the end of the deal, plus $1M is not expensive at all.

I would prefer to sign him for even longer, but three years would bring him right to unrestricted free agency, and four years (one extra year after free agency) isn’t quite long enough to make it worthwhile having him as a UFA at the end of it. And any deal longer than that is unrealistic because I doubt Wolanin would be willing to sign for such a small cap hit on a long-term deal. I think he is already a top-four defenseman, but even if you think he is more well-suited for the third pairing, $1M per season is nothing for a team that needs to reach the cap floor.

Trade Ben Harpur to Philadelphia for a 6th round pick

The Flyers are trying to add more pieces to their roster, and defense is definitely an area of need. They traded Radko Gudas for Matt Niskanen, and perhaps they feel like they need to add more physicality to their lineup. They have five defensemen under contract for next season, although Ivan Provorov and Travis Sanheim will be signed as well. Adding Harpur might be too many bodies for them, but like I said, he just feels like somebody that the Flyers would target.

The specific team in this scenario is mostly irrelevant---I just think it would be wise to move Harpur for a late round pick because he doesn’t have an obvious spot on the roster.

Trade Cody Ceci to Winnipeg for Mathieu Perrault, Mason Appleton, and 2019 2nd round pick

I have little faith that Dorion will make the right move and finally trade Ceci, but this would be the easiest thing that I would do as GM. Ceci’s value is definitely not as high as it was a few years ago when he allegedly could have been involved in a package for Taylor Hall, but I still think teams around the league would covet a 25-year-old right-shot defenseman who has played a lot of tough minutes.

The Jets are a team that clearly have the talent to win the cup, but they need to add a few more pieces on the margins in order to beat the best teams in the league. They will probably be losing Tyler Myers to free agency, which leaves a spot on the right side wide open. Sure, we know that Ceci won’t be a good answer for them, but the Jets might beg to differ. Winnipeg has Dustin Byfuglien and Neal Pionk on the right side, plus rookie Sami Niku who might get more of a shot. They were able to deal Jacob Trouba and get Pionk in return, but I think they will want to keep adding because that trade was a lateral move at best.

Maybe this hypothetical return is more than Winnipeg would ever offer, but I don’t think we can ever underestimate teams strange love for Ceci. Perrault has a 5-team NTC but there’s a chance that Ottawa is not on that list. He is making $4.125M over the next two seasons, which helps the Senators replace Ceci’s cap hit, plus they get a 31-year-old veteran which they covet. He wouldn’t be important for the team’s long-term plans, but it would help the money work for both teams (as the Jets wanted to get rid of his cap hit anyway), plus Ottawa would be able to get slightly more in the rest of the deal.

Appleton is not a household name amongst prospects, but he had 32 points in 40 AHL games this season and had 66 points in 76 games in 2017-18. The 23-year-old had 10 points in 36 games for the Jets and has a decent chance to be a late-blooming top-six forward. I was looking at another prospect to make this deal happen, but there wasn’t anybody that quite fit the right mould---which is why I added in the 2nd round pick instead of a player at the end. If that were to happen in reality, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dorion flip one of his one million picks in order to acquire a roster player.

The Jets might not be willing to take anything close to this, but I do think that Ottawa can still get something of value for Ceci.

Trade Alex Formenton, Max Lajoie, and 2020 2nd round pick to Vegas for Colin Miller

I’m sure writers from every team around the league have been talking about getting Miller from the Golden Knights, and the chances of Ottawa actually getting him are probably quite slim. Nevertheless, the soon-to-be 27-year-old was scratched a few times in the regular season and playoffs and it appears as if Vegas isn’t totally sold on him anymore despite signing him to a 4-year, $15M contract last summer.

Miller is making only $3.875M per year for the next three seasons, which is a steal for someone who can easily slot into the top-four for any team in the league. Acquiring him would be a move for the present as well as the future, as he would be a missing piece on the right side of the defense that Ottawa has been missing. It’s extremely rare for a top-four defenseman in his prime to become available on the trade market, and Dorion actually has some interesting assets to get a deal done.

Formenton is already beloved by many fans, although I’m still not 100% sold on his offensive ability. I think he will be an NHL player, but I’m skeptical on his overall impact. Lajoie showed flashes of being a good NHL defensemen, but still struggled mightily at points. Vegas would be looking to acquire a close-to-ready defenseman in this trade, and Lajoie fits the bill better than anyone else in the organization, especially because he has become somewhat expendable behind three other left-handed players.

The 2nd round pick would feel like nothing because Ottawa would have so many of them after the trade involving Cody Ceci. I wouldn’t want to move any of Drake Batherson, Logan Brown, Josh Norris, or Jacob Bernard-Docker, but perhaps my unwillingness to move them would make the Golden Knights say no. Nevertheless, other players such as Filip Chlapik, Marcus Hogberg, Filip Gustavsson, Rudolfs Balcers, Vitaly Abramov, Chris Tierney, and Jean-Gabriel Pageau could be involved in a deal for Miller, so it’s not as if a trade would be impossible.

It’s unlikely that Ottawa would go after Miller in reality, but I think it would be smart to snag him from a team that is currently undervaluing him.

Keep the AHL free agents

With the previous moves made, the Senators blueline would look like this:

Chabot-DeMelo
Brannstrom-Miller
Wolanin-Jaros
Borowiecki

Alsing-Ebert
Englund-?
?-?

Now, there are several free agents that could be re-signed still, and that’s where the depth in the AHL could be filled out. I was hesitant about wanting to keep Andreas Englund (RFA) around, but he was re-signed as I was writing this anyway. Stefan Elliott, Cody Goloubef, Erik Burgdoerfer, and Justin Falk are also UFAs, and I wouldn’t mind re-signing all of them to one-year contracts. Elliott and Goloubef are both right-handed (and better) so I would definitely keep them, and if Burgdoerfer and Falk aren’t kept in the organization, then it would be smart to sign two similar veteran AHLers.

Then Belleville’s defense corps would be:

Alsing-Ebert
Englund-Elliott
Burgdoerfer-Goloubef
Falk

AHL teams always need tons of depth, so it would be smart to keep as many defensemen around as possible.

Extend Thomas Chabot for 8 years/$7M per year

It’s hard to know the exact cap hit for Chabot’s next contract, but he will obviously be getting a hefty raise. Chabot still has one year left on his entry-level contract, but they can extend him as soon as July 1st. There is no excuse to not try as hard as possible to keep him around for the maximum term possible, as this fanbase needs to know that this new core is here to stay.

Chabot just posted 55 points in 70 games and he doesn’t need to do anything else to prove that he will be worth a lot of money. He will be the number one defenseman for years to come. I am more than comfortable keeping him until he is 31, and considering he has only played in 134 games, a cap hit somewhere in the $7M range sounds about reasonable. Even if he asks for more, I’d be willing to give more. The price shouldn’t matter very much---the most important thing is that he gets extended, because I can’t imagine he will ask for a ridiculous amount.

Stay tuned for part 3 of this series!
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