Drop Pass Episode 7: NHL trade deadline edition

Amy Fiscus drops by to chat about the big trade deadline deals and we look at how those may shape the final push toward the playoffs.



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Detroit Red Wings trade deadline move

Well, I guess the Wings are going to go for the playoffs. With the team absolutely getting killed by injuries, yet still clinging to the final playoff spot, deadline day was a tough call for Detroit GM Ken Holland.

 Let's run down the list of injuries really quickly:

• Captain Henrik Zetterberg out for the regular season.
• Pavel Datsyuk out for likely half of the remaining games in the regular season.
• Stephen Weiss (the guy who was supposed to be the second line center at the start of the year), out for 2 months and counting. Apparently had another set back.
• Darren Helm, (supposed to be third line center) out once again with who knows what now.

If healthy, that group of centers would rival most teams in the league. Instead, on Tuesday Detroit was rolling out Joakim Andersson as the No. 1 center. He, of the 21 career points.

So at the trade deadline there seemed to be three options.

1. Add to the roster to try to hang on to that last playoff spot.
2. Do nothing and hope for the best.
3. Accept defeat and trade off players of some value in exchange for draft picks.

Leading up to the deadline Holland said he was not interested in acquiring a "rental" player who would not be under contract for next season. Also, with the cap and roster limitations he needed a partner interested in taking players back. He did not want to trade a first round pick, especially since that could be a lottery pick for the first time in more than 20 years. And his stated target would be a veteran defenseman.

So of course he went out and got Michigan native David Legwand ($4.5 million cap hit, actual salary $3.5 million) from the Predators, parting with Patrick Eaves, prospect Calle Jarnkrok and a third-round pick.

So was this a good move?

First let's take a look at Legwand. With 40 points in 62 games, Legwand would be second in scoring on the Red Wings. Of course, that is largely due to the fact that he's played 62 games and all of the Red Wings top offensive players have played nowhere close to that many. If you look at Legwand's points per 60 minutes, he is at 1.78. That is good enough to be second among forwards on Nashville, but only ranks him 10th on Detroit, just ahead of Justin Abdelkader (1.65/60).

If you look at the list below, most of the players are either veterans who have been injured or young players who should have been played more. Offensively, Legwand is not a huge boost for the Red Wings. But he is certainly miles ahead Todd Bertuzzi (0.79/60) and Dan Cleary (0.76/60).

Of course, offense is just one way to look at things. The Predators are famous for their two-way play. Let's see how Legwand fits in using Rob Vollman's player usage charts over at Hockey Abstract. If you are not familiar with player usage charts, they are fantastic. They combine several elements visually so you can right away see certain trends. This is how the charts work:

• A player's percentage of shifts started in the offensive zone are plotted on the X axis. So the further to the right, the more sheltered a player is.
• The quality of competition a player faces is plotted on the Y axis. So the higher up the chart you see a player, the tougher the competition.
• Also, the size of the player bubble represents how much ice-time they are getting.
• And finally, they are color-coded to show a player's shot attempt plus/minus compared to the rest of the team. A dark red bubble means a player is doing much worse than the rest of his team on the other end is dark blue, meaning that player is a top performer on the team.

 A few things stand out right away:

• Zetterberg is awesome. He is playing the toughest minutes on the team and yet his shot attempt plus/minus is better than just about everyone.
• Earlier in the year Datsyuk's bubble was right on top of Zetterberg's. But with his recent knee injury Coach Mike Babcock has been playing Datsyuk against slightly weaker competition and more often in the offensive zone. He's still solidly in the "two-way" player zone.
• The Red Wings third-line of Tomas Tatar, Riley Sheahan, Tomas Jurco is playing against weak competition and starting heavily in the offensive zone. And they are destroying the opposition.
• On the flip side, the fourth line of Drew Miller, Joakim Andersson and Luke Glendenning is facing weak competition. but starting more in their own zone, and getting the worst results compared to the rest of the team.

From the chart we can see that Legwand was facing tough competition without the benefit of starting the offensive zone an abnormal amount. He's not quite on the Zetterberg level, but has played some hard minutes. And another positive, his shot attempt plus/minus was still one of the best on the Predators. The closet possession comparison on the team seems to be Justin Abdelkader, but part of that is the great linemates Justin has played with. As to Detroit centers, Legwand is about where I think Darren Helm could have been had he stayed healthy all season.

So Legwand would certainly be a welcome addition to any team. But now it's time for the "but." Legwand is not a game changing offensive player. Something pretty much every team wants. He's also not a defenseman. It's obvious that the Red Wings defense is not good enough to realistically compete in the playoffs. One area that is really striking is the number of penalties the Red Wings now take. After years of being one of the least penalized teams in the league (thank you Lidstrom) the Red Wings now are ranked fifth in power play attempts faced. The biggest reason? Defenseman playing above their ability. Jonathon Ericsson and Niklas Kronwall have combined to take 27 more penalties than they've drawn, and Kyle Quincey is -20 in that category himself. Add in Todd Bertuzzi (-11) and those four players have accounted for an extra 58 power plays for the opposition. The Red Wings desperately need a top four defender who can actually defend without constantly going to the box.

There is also the issue of what the Red Wings gave up. Legwand is 33, on the decline and might not re-sign with the team. So did they give up too much? Probably.

If Detroit had only given up Patrick Eaves, a third-round pick and, say, Landon Ferraro, this would have been a great move. Eaves was redundant back in July when the Red Wings signed Drew Miller to a new contract. Eaves in fact was passed on by every team in the league when he was sent through waivers to play in the minors. The Predators were basically taking a contract off the Red Wings' hands (and his $1.2 million cap hit). A third-round draft pick is a crapshoot, and Legwand is certainly worth at least that. Where this one may come back to haunt the Wings is the prospect in the deal, Jarnkrok.



Jarnkrok has been a highly-touted prospect in the Detroit system for a few years. He was drafted in the second round in 2010. He played three seasons in the Swedish Elite league racking up 102 points in the defensive league. After a slow start in the AHL this year, he'd exploded recently with 35 points in 57 games on the season. The thing that should make any Wings fan shudder is that Jarnkrok was most often compared to a young Zetterberg, due to his two-way game, scoring touch and ability to hold on the puck despite his size.  Jarnkrok would likely be the top prospect for several NHL teams and possibly on an NHL roster for a few others.

Of course, the Red Wings seem to have the skilled, but undersized European forward role pretty well covered, both on the big club and in the minors. With Nyquist, Tatar, Sheahan, and Jurco all showing they are NHL ready, there is actually becoming a glut of young, skilled forwards on the roster and in the minors. Likely sooner than later the Red Wings needed to make a move and they say you have to give something to get something. Given the injuries, it's possible Legwand could be the difference that gets the Wings into the post-season. My only wish was that the trade had been for a defender. The Wings will have a lot of useless cap spending coming off the books after the season closes, but as has been the case since the second Bettman lockout, the free agent market is just not going to have many game-breaking players. That means the Wings might find the best way to fill that space is via trade. And one of their nice trade assets just went to Nashville.

Drop Pass: Episode 6

The podcast is back! Fiscus joins me to talk about Olympic highlights, some of the fallout of the Winter Games, and we look forward to the trade deadline and push to the playoffs.




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