McKenna’s Musings: Looking at what goes into a player requesting a trade
What’s on my mind…
Trade requests. Jack Eichel wanted out of Buffalo. Vladimir Tarasenko wants out of St. Louis. Jake DeBrusk wants out of Boston. And I’m sure there’s other situations percolating that we don’t know about.
I’ve never had a strong opinion either way on players demanding to be moved. Every situation is different and deserves it’s own analysis. But it really is fascinating to see how difficult these types of deals have become in today’s NHL. The salary cap can be such a big hurdle.
Both Tarasenko and DeBrusk have value on the trade market. But how much?
Tarasenko has been fantastic for the St. Louis Blues. He’s racked up 19 points in 21 games despite spending a decent chunk of the season skating on the third line. I’m sure Blues GM Doug Armstrong wouldn’t mind hanging onto him if possible. The Blues have been dealt a pretty tough hand so far this year with injuries and COVID – they need the depth in scoring and Tarasenko looks like the 30-goal version of himself lately.
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It’s going to take a really nice package to pry Tarasenko loose. And even then, he comes with a $7.5 million cap hit through next season. Tarasenko has a no-trade clause and would have to greenlight any deal. You can bet he’d only want to play for a team with a real chance of winning the Stanley Cup. There aren’t many contending teams in a position to absorb that big of a contract. Dollars in, dollars out. Who’s willing? I don’t know the answer.
But DeBrusk? That’s a wild card. The former 27-goal scorer should have plenty of suitors despite a cap hit of $3.675 million. It’s an expiring contract and teams are always looking to add scoring. I have to think there’s a team willing to roll the dice on DeBrusk.
There are question marks. From my seat, it’s pretty obvious that DeBrusk and Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy aren’t on the same page. Cassidy has questioned DeBrusk’s work ethic and recently made him a healthy scratch. Maybe a chance of scenery is all he needs to get the fire back in his game.
The Bruins would have been better off moving DeBrusk before this season, but hindsight is 20/20. His current value is depressed after scoring just five times during the 2020-21 season and only three times so far this year. This won’t be an easy move for Bruins GM Don Sweeney. It would help both sides if DeBrusk finds his scoring touch in the near future.
With all this talk about NHL players requesting to be moved, it got me thinking about my own experience. I never asked for a trade. But I came close.
It happened after my 11th year of professional hockey. I was halfway through a two-year contract with the Florida Panthers and coming off arguably my best season.
Life was good. Our family had lived in Portland, Maine for two seasons in a row, and it was starting to feel like home to us. We loved the community and the house we rented. I even had a deal in place to be a part-time food critic for the local paper.
So when we lost to the Hershey Bears in the 2015-16 AHL playoffs, I made plans to rent a storage shed. For the first time in my career, I was going to be able to leave household items over the summer. It was perfect.
And then we found out the team had been sold to a group in Springfield, Massachusetts and the Pirates were done. It happened so quickly and our family was devastated. I’d signed a two-year deal with the Panthers because I wanted to play in Portland. I loved it there. And the Panthers – with Gerard Gallant coaching – were a team on the rise. I wanted to be a part of it.
I had already played in Springfield a few seasons prior when I was in the Columbus Blue Jackets organization. It wasn’t my favorite destination. I wouldn’t have willingly signed a contract to go back there.
On top of that, things seemed off. Tom Rowe had taken over as GM of the Panthers and made some rather curious moves. On June 23, 2016, he traded forward Rocco Grimaldi to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for goaltender Reto Berra.
The move set off an alarm in my head. I was coming off the best season of my career and fully expected to be Florida’s clear-cut No. 3 three goaltender the following season.
Reto had yet to establish himself as a full-time NHL goalie. And I wasn’t convinced that the Panthers were going to make him Roberto Luongo’s backup the following season. But Tom Rowe assured my agent that Berra would be in Florida and I had nothing to worry about.
And then the Panthers signed James Reimer to a five-year contract worth $17 million on July 1, 2016.
Suddenly I was demoted to No. 4 on the Panthers’ depth chart and headed to a city that I didn’t want to live in again. And it felt like I’d been lied to.
It took some real soul searching over the next week or two to decide if I really wanted to ask for a trade. I’d never done it before. And I didn’t like the feeling that I was somehow quitting on a commitment that I’d already made.
What it really came down to was that I didn’t see any better options available. Teams had already signed their goaltenders for the upcoming season during the first few days of free agency. So I sucked it up and went back to Springfield.
During the early part of the season, Florida kept telling my agent that they were trying to trade Reto. It never happened. But guess who ended up getting dealt before the season was finished?
Me.
It was a shock. I had played nearly twelve seasons before I was traded. But it was one of the best things to happen in my career.
The Tampa Bay Lightning traded goaltender Adam Wilcox for me – one-for-one – and I was assigned to their AHL-affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch. We ended up making it to the Calder Cup Final, where we lost in Game 6 to the Grand Rapids Griffins.
I started every game of the playoff run. Even in defeat, it was an amazing experience playing for a championship. Julien BriseBois was the GM of our Crunch team. He believed in me more than I believed in myself – until I finally started to believe.
It’s powerful walking into such a well-run organization like the Tampa Bay Lightning. It started at the top with Steve Yzerman and the trickle down effect was palpable. Winning was an expectation rather than a hope.
I still look back at that year and shake my head. What if I had requested a trade? Would I have played in the Calder Cup Final? Probably not.
It’s funny how life works. Sometimes the best option isn’t really an option. It’s the hand you’re dealt.