Two weeks ago, the Vancouver Canucks traded their former top prospect Jack Rathbone – alongside Karel Plasek – to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Mark Friedman and Ty Glover. The trade seemed like bad value for the Canucks at the time, but the organization had agreed to give Rathbone a fresh start elsewhere if he couldn’t make the NHL roster. So far, it looks like we have a clear winner of this trade.
Canucks get their RHD
When the Canucks acquired Friedman, they identified right-shot defense as a position of need and went out and got it. At the time though, it didn’t seem like an AHLer was a good get for Rathbone, even if the latter was struggling and wanted out.
Well, Friedman stepped in right away for the Canucks, replacing Noah Juulsen and stepping into a regular role with the team. In fact, the 27-year-old has even been playing alongside Ian Cole, bumping Tyler Myers down to the third pairing with Carson Soucy. Even though Friedman is no world-beater and he’s largely a temporary, patchwork fix for this blueline, it’s working.
As long as Friedman continues to perform in this role and doesn’t make any egregious mistakes, the Canucks will have acquired a dependable right-shot defender for basically nothing. So far, they’re clearly winners.
Why the Penguins lose
So, the Penguins won this trade on value, and that’s basically it. Given their team and what they already have, acquiring Rathbone really made no sense for them. With the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, the 24-year old has one assist in five games, and is a minus-three in the plus-minus category.
Rathbone just has no path to NHL playing time in Pittsburgh, as he’s already behind Marcus Pettersson, Ryan Graves, Ryan Shea, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, John Ludvig, and Will Butcher, at a minimum. Although this isn’t the ideal situation for him to try to do so, if Rathbone can’t get involved at the NHL level at some point this season, he’ll probably never become a regular.
Grade (for the Canucks): A
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It’s a long fall from grace for Rathbone, who once scored 40 points in 39 games with Abbotsford two seasons ago. Hopefully he gets the opportunities he needs, but the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.