From a Caps fan perspective, these are mostly improvements, even if there's no way Ottawa is moving Duchene right after trading four guys for him.
ROR is a significant upgrade at 2LW and gives this team center depth. Quite likely Eller gets moved to wing and ROR plays 3C because he's better defensively, but he and Kuznetsov could also play a lot of offense together.
Johnson plays less time and has worse plus minus than Orpik, and the same number of points, and a worse contract, but his corsi is a little better (still below 50%). He's also a lot younger, though, and his contract ends this year, which might make it look crazy for Columbus to take on Orpik's contract for next year.... except that Johnson helps the Blue Jackets almost be good enough to make the playoffs, so getting a similar physical, stay at home defenseman for another year might make sense to them, as a form of planning ahead? Still, if they're going to retain salary to help the Caps afford other players, they'll want a pick or a prospect for doing that.
Niskanen is flat out better than Ellis. He gets the same points, plays two more minutes a night, starts 15% more of his shifts in the defensive zone and has a better plus/minus. Just a much better all around player, and tougher. But Ellis is four years younger, and way cheaper.
Green is not better than Bowey at evens, and he's not better than Carlson at power plays, so adding even half of his salary is a bad idea.
Giving up Grubauer, who leads the Caps, all time, in goals against average and save percentage, in order to add Green, for no particular reason, is, indeed...
Quoting: buttscarlton
insane.
But I wouldn't go so far as to call this a
Quoting: hazard
troll post.
It's a reflection of how closely Caps fans have followed Vegas, and looked at what they're doing with a bunch of puck moving defensemen and a lot of quick forwards. But giving up tougness on defense without adding quite enough speed up front to really cange the Caps' game doesn't quite make sense. They're leading the division. Adding Gallagher or OReilly would be fabulous. Trading down from Holtby to Bishop and trading down from Niskanen and Orpik to guys who play fewer minutes, play less defense, and aren't as tough... all to afford Mike Green, who has the same zone starts and corsi as Madison Bowey this year, and takes 23% more minutes to generate each point at even strength, but gets lots of power play time in Detroit because they don't have Carlson... that's giving up three guys who have the Caps leading their division and helped them win the league over both of the last two regular seasons in order to add a guy who scored a bunch of goals a decade ago.
McDavid, Connor
$250,000)
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