PHR Panel: Trade Market Memories (Part 1)

The year is almost up and NHL teams are taking breaks to spend time with their families before the second-half grind begins in earnest. Once the calendar turns to 2023, trade chatter will start again, and the push to the playoffs will begin. A break is time for reflection, and over this weekend we will be looking back with one of our favorite features: the PHR Panel.

In the spirit of the holidays, we have a special treat for the PHR community. Three of our former writers have joined in to give us their thoughts on what has been an incredible year of hockey. Welcome back Zach Leach, Holger Stolzenberg, and Nate Brown! Because we have the whole family back together, we’ll split each panel into two parts.

Now on to the meat of the thing. Our question today is simple:

What is the most memorable transaction of 2022?

Brian La Rose

Tampa Bay Lightning Acquire Brandon Hagel

It certainly wasn’t the biggest move nor the splashiest, but Tampa Bay’s acquisition of Brandon Hagel is one that stunned me at the time. Not that the Lightning going and getting help wasn’t expected but the price tag (two first-round picks plus two young, cost-controllable roster players) seemed almost unthinkable for someone with Hagel’s somewhat limited track record.

Consider that Hagel was drafted by Buffalo and wasn’t offered a contract. Montreal brought him in as a camp invite and didn’t see fit to sign him either. Chicago did but he only played in 108 games before the trade, scoring 30 goals. Decent, sure, but worth two first-round picks plus Taylor Raddysh and Boris Katchouk? No, I certainly didn’t see that coming.

What really made this trade memorable for me is how much it hammered home the value of team-friendly contracts. Trades are supposed to be about adding talent and key pieces but this move really emphasized that in this marketplace, math is what deals are all about. The top players don’t necessarily have the best trade value. Now, it’s the cost-effective players that do, especially ones with multiple years on a team-friendly contract. That’s how a forward with 30 career goals fetches two first-rounders.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t intended to be negative toward Tampa Bay. I fully get the logic and it’s absolutely defensible within the context of their cap situation. And Hagel is doing a nice job for them. But if someone would have suggested to me a month before the deadline that Brandon Hagel was going to be the player that brought back the most first-rounders, I’d have thought that person was joking. This move was an eye-opener for me in that sense, so it’s one that is definitely memorable.

Zach Leach

Boston Bruins Acquire Pavel Zacha

While blockbuster trades, lopsided swaps, or other headline-grabbing transactions are often the most memorable – and 2022 had its fair share – the deals that usually stick with me are the thinkers. There are always some trades that seem to heavily favor one side and beg the question “What was the GM thinking?” In 2022, the biggest head-scratcher in that regard was the Pavel Zacha–Erik Haula swap.

The New Jersey Devils are an up-and-coming young team that has nearly $25MM in salary coming off the books after the 2022-23 season. In Zacha, they had a 25-year-old restricted free agent forward coming off of a career-high in points and a defensive renaissance. The Devils could have found a way to manage the cap in order to sign Zacha to a multi-year deal and allow him to keep growing with their young core. The counter to this, of course, is that perhaps GM Tom Fitzgerald and company didn’t see the upside in paying to keep Zacha and wanted to trade him instead, which would be perfectly valid even if incorrect.

However, the player they chose to swap him for (straight up) was 31-year-old journeyman Haula, who was entering the final season of his contract and will be an unrestricted free agent at year’s end. He enjoyed a solid season in Boston in 2021-22, recording 44 points in 78 games, and is certainly the more experienced scorer and defensive player compared to Zacha. But his per-game production last year was not all that different than Zacha’s 36 points in 70 games and Haula was skating with the Bruins’ elite top-six for most of the campaign.

In fact, Zacha had the superior career points-per-game mark, the higher career average time on ice, better checking numbers, better possession numbers, and more. Considering again that Zacha was six years younger and under team control, while Haula is a stopgap depth piece for (at the time of the trade) a team that was not expected to contend for a postseason spot, the deal didn’t make much sense.

Since the trade was made, the status quo has changed somewhat. The Bruins signed Zacha to a one-year deal, making him an impending unrestricted free agent as well. This was yet another odd wrinkle to the trade, but understandable given Boston’s difficult short-term and long-term cap squeeze and primary focus on competing for a Stanley Cup right now. Even as a fellow UFA, Zacha still is the better player in the deal and has proven it this season.

Prior to their ongoing slide, the Devils were the biggest surprise of the early 2022-23 season as one of the top teams in the NHL and Haula has been contributing with 14 points in 33 games. And yet, the Bruins are undoubtedly the league’s top team and Zacha is playing a key role, recording 19 points in 31 games. Given the question marks in Boston’s aging core, Zacha looks like a potential long-term fit with the Bruins if the two sides can strike a deal before free agency.

Haula, though admittedly now a valued veteran piece of a team with playoff ambitions, is still likely to be one-and-done with the Devils. Even in the midst of a strong start to the season and a bright future, New Jersey fans should still be wondering why they moved on from Zacha, why they targeted an impending UFA in exchange for an RFA with no certainty of contending this season, and why they couldn’t get more than Haula (from Boston or elsewhere) in exchange? It’s a strange deal that I still find myself thinking about.

John Gilroy

Florida Panthers Acquire, Extend Matthew Tkachuk

It’s not very often that a pair of Hart candidates and a Norris candidate are all traded for each other. In fact, the last and only time two players coming off of 100-point seasons were dealt for each other, it was the trade that sent Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings, with Jimmy Carson going the other way.

There are two key elements of this trade that make it the most memorable to me. The first is that Weegar, frequently listed among the favorites to compete for the Norris, was likely the third-best player involved in this trade. Adding to that, remember Florida also sent a first-round pick to Calgary with Weegar and Huberdeau.

The other part of this that makes it memorable is the timing: late at night on a Friday more than a week after free agency had opened. Personally, I recall checking my phone one last time before putting it down to go to bed, not expecting to see much, but instead getting one of the biggest blockbusters in league history.

Nobody would bet on this type of deal going down, but if it was going to, it’s hard to imagine it would happen anywhere other than the floor of the NHL Draft.

Nate Brown

Ottawa Senators Acquire Alex DeBrincat – Montreal Canadiens Acquire Kirby Dach – Chicago Blackhawks Acquire Petr Mrazek

I’m going to bundle the triumvirate of trades that the Chicago Blackhawks made during the 2022 NHL Draft. The Blackhawks had peddled their 2022 first-round pick to Columbus, which wouldn’t you know it, ended up being a top-ten pick. New general manager Kyle Davidson went to work, dealing Alex DeBrincat for Ottawa for its seventh overall pick, a 2022 second-round pick, and a 2024 third-round pick.

As the hockey world was digesting the deal, Davidson shipped 2019 third-overall pick Kirby Dach to Montreal for the Canadiens’ 13th-overall pick and a third-round pick. Finally, Davidson sent the Hawks’ 2022 second-round pick to Toronto for its 25th overall pick and goalie Petr Mrazek.

This signaled two things to the league.

• Chicago was all-in on a rebuild. It immediately led to speculation about Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews’ future in the Windy City, but as of this panel, they’re still in the fold.
• Davidson was not gun-shy and would make deals that could accelerate the Blackhawks’ rebuild.

Chicago has obviously gone hard into the Connor Bedard tank-a-thon and Davidson got a jump start on it by acquiring three picks to potentially bring along should Chicago win the Lottery in 2023.

Check back for part 2 later today!