What are defensemen worth in the trade market?

Photo credit:Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports

5 years ago

The Calgary Flames have a problem with scoring depth. Outside of their potent top two forward lines, they have trouble generating offense and scoring depth has shown to be the best path to winning a Stanley Cup championship. The Flames’ lack of scoring depth has been connected by many to their very deep defensive group, with many fans and analysts – including the staff at this site – pondering if general manager Brad Treliving might swap a blueliner to grab a top-flight scoring winger to help out the likes of Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan.

But the possibility of a trade involving a Flames defenseman is rather moot if the return from that trade wouldn’t solve the depth issues the club is facing. What type of return should we expect from a trade sending a defenseman out of town?

Three trade scenarios

There are three Flames defenseman that are most commonly brought up in trade scenarios:

Michael Stone: he’s the one with the most obvious internal replacement (Rasmus Andersson).
TJ Brodie: he’s the one that struggled the most last season and arguably could benefit the most from a change of scenery.
Dougie Hamilton: he’s the one that could likely get the largest return.

For simplicity, we’re going to look at trades involving comparable players since the beginning of 2017 to determine what the market is like for each of these players. We’re defining “comparable” as being somewhat similar in terms of age and career offensive production.

Trading Michael Stone

The Flames acquired Stone prior to 2017’s trade deadline in a swap with Arizona that sent away a 2017 third round pick and a conditional 2018 fifth round pick (which was converted when Stone re-signed with the club).

A career 0.26 points per game player (over 426 NHL games), he turns 28 years old this month and is signed for two more seasons (through the 2019-20 season) at a $3.5 million AAV.

Carolina sends D Ron Hainsey [36; 0.28 PPG; pending UFA] to Pittsburgh for 2017 2nd rounder and Danny Kristo
Dallas sends D Jordie Benn [29; 0.22 PPG; two years remaining at $1.1 million AAV] to Montreal for 2017 4th rounder and Greg Pateryn
Detroit sends D Brendan Smith [28; 0.22 PPG; pending UFA] to NY Rangers for 2017 3rd rounder & 2018 2nd rounder
Dallas sends D Johnny Oduya [35; 0.22 PPG; pending UFA] to Chicago for 2018 4th rounder & Mark McNeill
Vegas sends D David Schlemko [30; 0.23 PPG; two years remaining at $2.1 million AAV] to Montreal for 2019 5th rounder
Chicago sends D Niklas Hjalmarsson [29; 0.23 PPG; two years remaining at $4.1 million AAV] to Arizona for Connor Murphy & Laurent Dauphin
NY Islanders sends D Travis Hamonic [26; 0.30 PPG; three years remaining at $3.57 million AAV] to Calgary for 2018 1st rounder, 2018 2nd rounder & 2019 2nd rounder
Vegas sends D Marc Methot [31; 0.20 PPG; two years remaining at $4.9 million AAV] to Dallas for 2020 2nd rounder & Dylan Ferguson
Vegas sends D Alexei Emelin [30; 0.18 PPG; one year remaining at $4.1 million AAV] to Nashville for 2019 3rd rounder
Florida sends D Jason Demers [28; 0.33 PPG; four years remaining at $4.5 million AAV] to Arizona for Jamie McGinn
Chicago sends D Michal Kempny [26; 0.17 PPG; pending UFA] to Washington for 2018 3rd rounder
NY Rangers sends D Nick Holden [31; 0.30 PPG; pending UFA] to Boston for 2018 3rd rounder & Rob O’Gara
Ottawa sends D Ian Cole [29; 0.24 PPG; pending UFA] to Columbus for 2020 3rd rounder & Nick Moutrey

Stone has term left – which provides cost certainty to the team acquiring him – but he’s overpaid relative to his role on the team and his production level, which also probably brings down his trade value somewhat. Hamonic, Methot, Hjalmarsson, Demers and Emelin are all likely reasonable comparisons. He probably nets a second rounder (or a third rounder and a decent prospect) in a trade, potentially more if the Flames retain a bit of salary.

Stone has value, but trading him probably doesn’t accomplish much if the goal is to net a scoring winger based on the recent past.

Trading TJ Brodie or Dougie Hamilton

Brodie was Calgary’s fourth round selection in 2008. A career 0.43 points per game player (over 491 NHL games), he’s 27 and is signed for two more seasons (through the 2019-20 season) at a $4.65 million AAV.

Hamilton was acquired at the 2015 NHL Draft from Boston in exchange for a 2015 first rounder and two 2015 second rounders. A career 0.52 points per game player (over 423 NHL games), he’s 24 and is signed for three more seasons (through the 2020-21 season) at a $5.75 million AAV.

We’re lumping these players together because they’re fairly similar production-wise and not a lot of players with this level of production ever get traded – as you’ll see from the very small sample size below.

St. Louis sends D Kevin Shattenkirk [28; 0.60 PPG; pending UFA] & Pheonix Copley to Washington for 2017 1st rounder, Zach Sanford & two conditional picks not exercised
Philadelphia sends D Mark Streit [39; 0.55 PPG; pending UFA] to Tampa Bay for 2017 4th rounder, Valtteri Flippula & conditional pick not exercised; Tampa Bay sends Mark Streit to Pittsburgh for 2018 4th rounder
Anaheim sends D Sami Vatanen [27; 0.46 PPG; two years remaining at $4.875 million AAV] & 2019 (or 2020) 3rd rounder to New Jersey for 2018 3rd rounder, Adam Henrique & Joe Blandisi
Ottawa sends D Dion Phaneuf [33; 0.50 PPG; three years remaining at $7 million AAV] & Nate Thompson to Los Angeles for Marian Gaborik & Nick Shore

Let’s throw out Streit and Phaneuf because neither really fits here for age and cap hit reasons. Shattenkirk was a pending UFA, so arguably Vatanen is the only player that fits in as a comparable to Brodie and Hamilton – and those guys both outscore him. Ignoring the pick swap, Vatanen netted the Ducks a top six forward and a rock solid replacement level forward; that would probably be a decent place to start discussions for a Brodie swap.

Given that Hamilton is younger and more productive than Vatanen and Brodie, the expectation would have to be that he would net the Flames more than that.

Sum it up

If you share the sentiment that the Flames need to move a defenseman to bring in a scoring forward, a glance at recent trades involving defensemen suggests that either Brodie or Hamilton will have to be moved to make the trade worthwhile. Trading Stone would probably net the Flames some mix of mid-level picks and/or prospects and open a roster spot for Andersson, but none of those things are a scoring NHL forward – which was the entire purpose of making big changes to the blueline group in the first place.

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