Canadiens taking “serious calls” on Subban, including calls from the Oilers
7 years ago
TSN’s Bob McKenzie did a radio hit in Vancouver Thursday afternoon, and made it clear that trade talks centered on Montreal defenceman P.K. Subban have progressed beyond mere due diligence associated with Subban’s no-trade clause coming into effect on July 1.
One of the teams making calls? The Edmonton Oilers.
The full interview was carried on TSN 1040, and Chris Nichols provided a transcript of McKenzie’s comments on Subban in the immediate aftermath. The full interview is just over 10 minutes long and features lots of interesting discussion about this weekend’s draft, but there’s no question that from an Edmonton perspective McKenzie’s comments on Subban are the most important component.
In that interview, McKenzie was definitive that the Canadiens are not trying to dump Subban, but that the calls between Montreal and other clubs – Edmonton and Vancouver were specifically mentioned – were serious in nature and not simply “tire-kicking.” He also implied the obvious, that any deal would likely also include a top pick in this year’s draft.
What else would such a deal include?
Players of Subban’s stature and under long-term team control are traded so rarely that it’s difficult to know what the purchase price would be. One of the rare ones in recent memory was the deal which saw Chris Pronger leave Edmonton and head to Anaheim in exchange for five assets; it seems safe to say that we can treat that deal as outer marker.
Here are the assets Edmonton received in that deal:
- Joffrey Lupul. At the time of the trade, Lupul was a third-year pro and second-year NHL’er (the 2005 lockout relegated him to the AHL). He was about to turn 23 years old, a former No. 7 overall pick and coming off a 28-goal/53 point season. A younger Jordan Eberle would be a good comparable, though at this point the closest match on Edmonton’s roster in terms of value is probably Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. One could make a case that Leon Draisaitl is in the range here, too.
- Ladislav Smid. At the time of the trade, Smid was a 20-year-old defenceman coming off his first professional campaign; he had previously been picked No. 9 overall in the 2004 Draft. Darnell Nurse is an exact match in terms of experience and very close in draft pedigree, though he did play in the NHL as a rookie pro.
- 2007 first-round pick. This was the No. 30 overall selection, and although it was for a year down the road it was reasonable to assume that the Ducks would finish high in the NHL standings and that the selection would thus be in this range. Edmonton’s No. 32 pick this year would certainly be in the range.
- 2008 second-round pick. This was a No. 53 overall selection for two years down the road at the time of the deal. For those of you who appreciate historical coincidence, this selection was ultimately used on Travis Hamonic after the Oilers flipped it to the Islanders later on. Edmonton’s 2018 second-rounder would be a reasonable point of comparison.
- 2008 conditional first-round pick. Famously, the Oilers added a second first-round selection which was conditional on Anaheim winning the Stanley Cup. It was No. 22 overall, and Edmonton used this pick to draft Eberle. There is no exact comparison in the Oilers’ system for this pick.
If we’re looking to frame a deal along those lines, something like Nugent-Hopkins, Nurse, the No. 32 selection and a 2018 second-rounder would be in the range, with a little extra added to compensate for the conditional 2008 pick Edmonton received. Anaheim did very well when it made the trade, though Pronger was a little better then than Subban is now, and I’d be reasonably convinced that the Oilers would end up winning such a deal.
Such a deal is unlikely, however, when we realize that Edmonton’s No. 4 selection would also likely be part of the mix, either straight-up or in a swap for Montreal’s No. 9 pick.
Interestingly enough, we can probably place fair value on that No. 4 to No. 9 move, because at the 2008 Draft Garth Snow made a similar series of trades, going from No. 5 overall to No. 9 in that draft year. He added two second-rounders and a third-round pick (No. 37, No. 40 and No. 68, to be precise) in that deal. It’s easy enough to imagine those picks as being equivalent to the non-conditional picks Edmonton added in the Pronger deal. Perhaps, instead of the No. 4 being a primary piece in the deal, the move from No. 9 to No. 4 would be the sweetener added to a trade involving a centre and a defencemen for Subban.
Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal wrote on this while I was posting the initial part of this piece and stated his view that Subban was Edmonton’s primary target. In addition to the No. 4 pick, he added that sources suggest the Canadiens would prefer Draisaitl to Nugent-Hopkins and would want a defenceman added to the deal. That fits with both hypothetical scenarios discussed on today’s edition of Oilers Now (though I should point out that Bob Stauffer suggested those two pieces, plus significant additional assets, as the likely ask) and with a report from Georges Laraque that Montreal asked for Draisaitl and the No. 4:
At this point, it’s hard to know the exact details, but assuming that Montreal was willing to do a trade broadly structured along the lines of the Pronger deal (i.e. multiple assets in exchange for one good defenceman) it’s probably a good trade for Edmonton, just as it was for Anaheim. Both teams may do well in such a trade, but it’s almost always difficult to argue that the club getting the best player in the deal lost the exchange.
Such a deal might also feature a resolution of the Nail Yakupov situation; Yakupov played with Montreal centre Alex Galchenyuk in junior and trade rumours have long suggested that the Canadiens would be a fit.
Whatever the case, a deal bringing Subban to Edmonton would be the biggest trade involving the Oilers since the Pronger transactions. It would instantly revitalize the club’s blue line, and as long as such a trade didn’t include Taylor Hall it’s hard to imagine a plausible scenario where the Oilers would be worse off as a team in the aftermath. It’s even possible to imagine a deal built on Hall-for-Subban which works from an Edmonton perspective, and that’s really saying something.
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