King on CHL: Bull market
Posted January 12, 2011 2:55 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Move over Wall Street. Economic conservatism no longer exists in junior hockey.
The annual trade deadline across the Canadian Hockey League had a lot in common with the stock market during a bull market. The majority of the general managers were going all-in with their “buy mode” in the days and hours leading up to the deadline.
The few teams that decided to sell off assets were earning a king’s ransom for their veteran players. Those few sellers were grabbing draft picks hand over fist from teams hoping one more addition would be enough to put their team over the top.
There clearly has never been a better time for major junior hockey teams to sell off assets. It was a frenzy unlike any other seen in recent years and “escalation” was the only suitable term when describing the difference between this year’s deals compared to previous trade deadlines.
The two biggest deals were conceived in the more traditionally conservative Western Hockey League. The Kootenay Ice acquired Canadian world junior forward Cody Eakin in exchange for a package which included five players and three draft picks, all of which are in the first three rounds.
The Saskatoon Blades went a step further when they acquired Eakin’s world junior teammate and local product, Brayden Schenn. The Brandon Wheat Kings, a season removed from hosting the MasterCard Memorial Cup, acquired four draft picks and two of Saskatoon’s top prospects for Schenn and a third-round pick. Three of the four picks were first rounders.
These were the two most dramatic examples of the deadline frenzy. No longer did teams intend on playing nice. This was all about maximizing assets and letting the market dictate the economy.
And the economy dictated this year’s trade deadline like never before.
“Absolutely it’s escalated,” Medicine Hat Tigers general manager Brad McEwen said.
One doesn’t need to look further than last year’s deadline to compare the difference. The Wheat Kings made the biggest splash when general manager Kelly McCrimmon acquired defenceman Travis Hamonic from Moose Jaw. He packaged a young defenceman with a first-round pick and two seconds to nab the New York Islanders’ prospect.
The price seemed somewhat steep at the time, but it’s hardly even comparable to the package the Wheat Kings received for Schenn just one year later.
“This year it was triple (the price),” McEwen said. “I hate to see what next year’s top guy brings.”
McCrimmon’s three-year plan couldn’t have ended at a better time. Upon winning the rights to host last year’s MasterCard Memorial Cup, McCrimmon devised a plan that would allow his team to be competitive in each of the last two seasons. He envisioned re-filling the cupboards in this, the final year of that plan.
He basically received a gift when the Los Angeles Kings decided to send Schenn back to junior so he could participate in the recently completed world junior championship. Schenn, who had played in just two games with Brandon before departing for the world juniors, then became the biggest fish in a sea full of fishermen.
“Year three would be the year where we would need to try to add some players and draft picks back to our organization if that opportunity presented itself,” McCrimmon explained. “It’s a function of where we are in the standings (and) it’s a function of the prices that were being paid this particular trade season in our league and that all entered into it.”
McCrimmon called the offer he received from Saskatoon for Schenn “too good an offer to turn down.”
And how could it not be? He could have acquired three impact players at last year’s deadline for a similar package.
GAMEBREAKER
McCrimmon, however, denied his deal was influenced by the package Kootenay sent to Swift Current for Eakin a day earlier. That statement was hard to believe considering Ice general manager Jeff Chynoweth confirmed he was in the running for Schenn before pulling the trigger on the deal that landed him Eakin.
Chynoweth felt the only thing his team lacked was a bona fide scorer. In spite of being near the top of the standings, his team remains average in the goals-for category.
“Our goals don’t come easy,” Chynoweth said. “Goals are at a premium and you still have to score to win. We believe Cody Eakin is one of those rare players that’s a game-breaker in today’s game of hockey.”
Chynoweth identified Eakin as a player of interest early in the season, much like Portland had with Craig Cunningham. The Portland Winterhawks and Vancouver Giants completed Cunningham’s transfer two weeks before the deadline, when the price wasn’t quite as astronomical.
“I’m glad we (made the trade then) with the prices of the way players were moving in the last 24 to 48 hours,” Portland general manager Mike Johnston said. “I always think it’s better to get it done earlier.”
Much like it does in the stock market, the trade market fluctuated. McEwen found the asking price leveled and stabilized in the final day of the deadline. He was able to acquire defenceman Alex Theriau and forward Kellan Tochkin from Everett for forward Ryan Harrison and a second-round pick.
McEwen had pursued Theriau for several months before finally pulling the trigger. Unlike the Cunningham deal, this time it may have been helped by the fast approaching deadline.
“Once you’re up against the clock a little bit everybody kind of gets things back in perspective,” he said.
McEwen was glad to have held onto his first-round pick, especially considering five first-round bantam picks changed hands over the final month of activity in the Western Hockey League.
It might be a changing perception amongst general managers seeking that final piece to the puzzle.
“To actually pry a first-round pick out of somebody was amazing (several years ago),” McEwen said. “That was a huge price to pay. Now it seems to be almost an afterthought.”
“In talking with other general managers, the price seemed to be a lot higher even than five, six, seven years ago,” Johnston concurred. “They’re telling me a first-round pick wasn’t even thrown around that often. Now it seems to be a first-round pick is thrown in any of these deals, which is probably out of the ordinary.”
SIMILAR MARKET IN ONTARIO
Market escalation was felt equally in Ontario. Although teams are unable to trade first-round picks in the Ontario Hockey League, the value of a second-round pick dropped dramatically by comparison.
Many balked when Windsor Spitfires general manager Warren Rychel declared it would take a larger package than the one London sent Oshawa for John Tavares and Michael Del Zotto two years earlier (see table above) for him to part with Ryan Ellis and Zack Kassian.
As it turns out, Rychel may have been onto something. Good, but not great veteran players were being traded for packages that in some cases included three second-round picks. Rychel decided to keep his stars when the market was unwilling to meet his demands.
“I’m not going to move Ellis for a player and three (second-round picks),” he said. “That’s just simple math. He’s too good of a player to let him go for that.”
MARCHAND TRADE REVISITED
Few general managers have taken more heat for a deadline deal than ex-Halifax Mooseheads GM Marcel Patenaude. The Mooseheads made the biggest splash when they acquired local product Brad Marchand in a three-team trade with Val-d’Or and Québec three years ago.
Despite its star-filled roster, Halifax failed in its bid to win its first league title that year, losing in an embarrassing four-game sweep to eventual champion Gatineau in the semis. The Mooseheads fell into a deep rebuild the following season and Patenaude was fired mid-season.
“People in Halifax would always say that that trade probably cost me my job,” Patenaude said. “I wanted to win the championship and I would have done anything to win the championship for that city.”
Patenau
de later landed a job in the Québec Major Junior Hockey League head office as the executive vice-president. Although he lives in Montreal for his job, his family remains permanent residents of Halifax.
During his tenure, the Mooseheads reached the league finals twice, in 2003 and 2005. Close wasn’t good enough for fans in Halifax, who aren’t shy of sharing their opinion on the Marchand trade.
“Some people recognize what I’ve done, but they seem to forget pretty quickly,” he said. “(In 2003) we lost in seven against Gatineau. We had a pretty good hockey club. (In 2005) if Sidney Crosby was born a year earlier or a year later we probably would have won.”
It’s those same championship aspirations plaguing each team when the final hours are winding down at the trade deadline.
Patenaude strongly believed Marchand was the missing piece in Halifax’s last run, just like Chynoweth and Saskatoon general manager Lorne Molleken believe their prized deadline acquisitions could lead them to a championship this season.
After all, sometimes those big deadline deals work out. The Spitfires made a splash in each of the previous two deadlines, but did so by acquiring several assets as opposed to a single star. The core of those teams was built through the draft, which will always be an inexact science.
“If everyone builds through the draft and no one traded then it would be equal,” Rychel said. “You got to make moves to get ahead of the pack.”
As this year’s trade deadline proved, getting ahead of the pack can sometimes be easier said than done when short-term gain can come at a cost of long-term success.
“I think it’s something as a league we have to be careful of so we don’t ransom ourselves off at a certain time of the year just to do well in the playoffs,” Johnston said. “I think you have to add a piece and important parts, but you have to be careful to protect your organization long-term as well.”
“The pieces are always getting higher,” Patenaude cautioned, “but what goes around comes around.”
But until the bull market turns into a bear market, conservatism will take a backseat.
