Both Darryl Sutter and Don Waddell have taken a lot of heat recently for trading players that were once cornerstones of their franchise. It stems less from the act of trading the player and more from how it came about.
Most people believe that Sutter would’ve had a far superior return for the services of Dion Phaneuf had he made it known around the league that he was available. As for Waddell, it’s pretty much unanimous that he erred by not offering teams an opportunity to negotiate a pre-trade extension with Ilya Kovalchuk, something that would’ve have upped his value tremendously.
In my opinion, we saw something similar on Saturday with the Red Wings moving Ville Leino. Clearly this trade is less impactful by a few degrees of magnitude, but it’s hard to believe that the best return possible for Leino was a 7th defenseman and a 5th-round draft pick. It was only a few short months ago that Leino was considered a key offensive cog in the Red Wings machine, and I think this may be a trade that Ken Holland will someday regret.
So, what’s driving these odd decisions?
In the case of Sutter and Phaneuf, I can understand the desire to get a deal done quickly and quietly. For a team trying to make a serious playoff run, they don’t want to deal with weeks of trade speculation involving a key contributor. With Leino, it seems that the Red Wings were in dire straits to clear some cap room. I don’t understand this, as the long-term-injury exemptions they earned from the Franzen injury (not to mention time missed by Zetterberg and Kronwall) should have erased their cap concerns. That said, if they are in cap trouble then moving Leino quickly without taking on salary in return becomes an urgent need with Franzen set to return.
But Don Waddell? No such luck. It was absolute folly for Waddell to not let 29 different teams take a crack at Kovalchuk. When the entire hockey world knows that you’re about to trade one of its marquee players, you owe it to your organization to maximize the return. As I mentioned on the weekend, the Thrashers came out horrible in this deal. I can’t think of a single legitimate reason for not allowing contract negotiations pre-trade. The fact that the Thrashers did virtually the same thing with Marian Hossa screams of incompetence from the management team. If the Thrashers are to survive, they’ll need a regime change in Atlanta.