In what has become a yearly tradition for the Ottawa Senators, they are at the centre of the Trade Deadline talks. This year, the Sens aren’t trading a star along the lines of Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, or Matt Duchene but they have some good trade chips with ten unrestricted free agents. With that in mind, it’s important to dive into what the Ottawa Senators Trade Deadline should look like.
Looking Forward to the Ottawa Senators Trade Deadline
Keep the Belleville Senators Together
During Ottawa’s rebuild, nothing is more important than making sure their prospects are developing correctly. This should be front-and-centre in the Ottawa Senators trade deadline strategy. Many of Ottawa’s top prospects, like Drake Batherson, Logan Brown, Josh Norris, Erik Brannstrom, Rudolfs Balcers, and Alex Formenton, have been playing most of the season with their AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators. The high-end prospects have worked well together and continue to win in the minors.
Belleville has the AHL’s fifth-best winning percentage. There is no point for the Senators to trade so many veterans that they have to call-up prospects and risk messing up the team chemistry in Belleville. Their prospects should learn to win together in the minors before having to do it in the NHL.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau
Jean-Gabriel Pageau is Ottawa’s most intriguing trade chip. He is having a career season with 20 goals and 31 points in 48 games. His experience, leadership, and ability to be Ottawa’s number one centre makes him valuable to keep. The Senators sure think so. According to Ottawa based reporter, Bruce Garrioch, Ottawa is looking at their options to re-sign Pageau before deciding on whether to move him.
But once Ottawa’s prospects are ready, where does Pageau fit? Ottawa’s prospect centre depth chart includes Logan Brown, Colin White, Norris and Filip Chlapik. That doesn’t include the potential top-centre prospect Ottawa could draft this year.
With not many centres being available during this Trade Deadline, and Pageau having a career year, his trade value is as high as it is ever going to be. With that in mind and his future in Ottawa being unclear in three-to-four years, it makes sense for Ottawa to trade him. Garrioch has reported Ottawa is looking for a first-round pick and a prospect in return for Pageau.
The Defence
The next three free agents Ottawa can receive the most trade value for are defenceman Dylan DeMelo, Mark Borowiecki, and Ron Hainsey. However, all of them are valuable for the rebuild and should probably stay as Senators. If they want to leave, then Ottawa needs to trade two of them and keep one. Trading half of their defence is not realistic. They will likely keep Hainsey, if any. This is simply because he would be tough to move, with a $3.5 million cap hit.
Ottawa seems to be open to keeping all of them. Garrioch has reported that the Sens are looking at seeing if DeMelo and Borowiecki are interested in re-signing. It’s added that, above the other two, Hainsey’s leadership makes him an attractive keeper.
DeMelo is Ottawa’s second-best defenceman. At 26-years-old, he is young enough to be a part of their looming rebuild. He is not an offensive defenceman, with only seven goals in 248 NHL games, but he is their best in the defensive end. This season, DeMelo is second on the Sens defence in even-strength Corsi-For percentage, with 52.42. This is nearly four percent higher than Thomas Chabot, who is second. With Nikita Zaitsev as Ottawa’s only other right-shot defenceman, it is important that DeMelo stays. He can be a steady partner for some of the young left shooting defenceman like Chabot, Erik Brannstrom and Christian Wolanin.
Borowiecki and Hainsey are both bottom-pairing defenders on a contending team and the Sens should be able to get third-round picks back for them. With six picks already in the first three rounds of the draft, more third-rounders is not a pressing need for Ottawa. Borowiecki and Hainsey are two veteran leaders that would be more useful guiding the young players than being traded.
Craig Anderson
Craig Anderson has been an Ottawa Senator since 2011. At 38-years-old, he deserves a chance to win a Cup. Anderson told Garrioch that he is open to being traded.
If he is traded to a contender, he will move in as a backup. The problem with an Anderson trade is Ottawa can only retain 50 percent of his $4.75 million cap hit. If they do, Anderson’s new cap hit would be $2.375 million. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers are the only two-playoff teams where Anderson would be an improvement over the current backup, but neither team has cap space to acquire him. Ottawa will have to take back salary to make it work. Chances are this is a goodwill trade. Another team isn’t likely to give up a draft pick if they need to send Ottawa a roster-player to free up cap space for Anderson.
The Rest
The rest of the free agents include Tyler Ennis, Mikkel Boedker, Vladislav Namestnikov, Scott Sabourin and Cody Goloubef. Boedker can’t be traded beacuse he makes too much money. Sabourin and Goloubef are borderline NHL players and won’t fetch a lot in return, so Ottawa may as well keep them. That leaves Ennis and Namestnikov as the only two options to be traded.
With the main priority of keeping the Belleville Senators together, Ottawa should only trade one of Ennis or Namestnikov. Namestnikov is the one that should be traded. He is a solid third-line player who can bring some depth scoring and grittiness. That would make him a more intriguing option to a cup contender than a small-but-skilled player like Ennis. Namestinikov’s $3.25 million salary is a bit pricy but Ottawa can retain salary and make it a more reasonable price tag.
There is no question that Ottawa’s general manager, Pierre Dorion, is going to be busy during this Trade Deadline. With the a looming rebuild, this Ottawa Senators Trade Deadline seems vital to future success. Luckily, this strategy should be fairly easy to follow. The start of the rebuild should be seamless should Dorion choose to follow said strategy.
OTTAWA, ON – DECEMBER 19: Ottawa Senators Center Jean-Gabriel Pageau (44) stickhandles the puck against Nashville Predators Left Wing Filip Forsberg (9) during overtime of the NHL game between the Ottawa Senators and the Nashville Predators on Dec. 19, 2019 at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Steven Kingsman/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
