PHILADELPHIA CALLS: Cheap Offense and Young Depth
The Philadelphia Flyers are not satisfied with a showing to the Stanley Cup playoffs. When the Flyers got thrashed around by the Washington Capitals in scoring just six goals in six games, the management knew what they had to do:
"“We need some upgrade up front,” the Flyers’ general manager said last week. “We need some goal scoring, playmaking — [that] would be our number one need.”"
That was a month ago and the problem remains unsolved. While the Flyers could look to land big names from free agency, they also need to sign RFAs Jordan Weal, Brayden Schenn, Brandon Manning, and Radko Gudas and stay under the $7.5 million cap space they have right now.
The Canucks can offer some low-budget scoring and a young body who can save the Flyers from signing a veteran fourth-line center:
Net Draft Transaction: (#18 OP) – (#64 OP) = 21.1 “draft bucks”
Now, now, now. Don’t you call this a steal for the Flyers quite yet.
Jannik Hansen carries just a $2.5 million cap hit. Brendan Gaunce is a serviceable fourth-line forward who can be versatile defensively as well as score with timely speed.
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Considering that Hansen produced just as much offense as Hudler did at the time of his trade, the stage is set for Hansen to be traded. Hudler carried a $4.0 million pricetag while Hansen will be $1.5 million cheaper than Hudler and two years younger than Hudler when he was traded.
If Hudler, a rental, was worth 4.5 “draft bucks”, I would bet that Hansen is worth almost 8.
Let’s put Gaunce on a decent pedestal and say that his trade stock is at least just as high as Baertschi’s when he was acquired by the Vancouver Canucks — so make that 5+ for Gaunce.
To make this a fair trade, the Canucks still need to add some 5 “draft bucks”. I sound stupid saying this, but the Canucks would have to add a middle second-round pick to make this fair, essentially telling me that moving up 30 spots from #48 to #18 is worth a top-nine forward in Hansen, a former first-round pick in Gaunce, as well as an early third-round pick?
Obviously, there are times when a trade that seems to make the perfect sense don’t add up in the eyes of analytics. All being said, however, I would love the Canucks to make this move to free up some extra cap space for established top-six wing help from the free agency.
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