In Case of NHL Trade Emergency: Read This

Here are some things to think about when you hear about a breaking NHL trade. Before you get swept up in the moment, please take a step back and keep these helpful hints in mind. They should help you remain objective in a time when emotions get the best of us.

1. When one fan base is happy and the other isn’t sure, then you KNOW that someone got screwed. Fair and balance trades usually piss off fans from both teams. If you hear both sides saying something like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe we gave up that much,” then it’s probably pretty balanced. If one set of fans is happy and the other fanbase is trying to talk themselves into the trade, then you should be able to figure out who the loser is. You never want the other team to be TOO happy with a trade!

2. Fans always overrate their own players. They think they’re more valuable than they usually are—just ask Oiler fans what Andrew Cogliano was worth last year. Or Joni Pitkanen for that matter. Here’s a note to fans: As much as you love your prospects, they’re probably not any better than any other teams’ youngers. (Except for Kings fans, of course. Because the Kings have the best prospects in the league. Yeah, I said it.)

Please refer to #10

3. Whoever gets the best player, wins. This isn’t 100% true, but the vast majority of the time it is. Yes, it’s really that simple.

4. GMs do really weird things when the salary cap is involved. If a team starts having a fire sale because they were stupid in the past, the biggest loser of the trade is the team’s fans. The team will play it off like they are trying to make room under the salary cap or that they’re trying to make room for a big signing—but usually they’re just cheap. Keep that in mind when your team buys a player out, chances are they are just saving money. At the end of the day, it’s only a business to a lot of owners: don’t be naïve and think your team is any different.

5. Don’t think that you’re going to get something for nothing. I always hear fans talking about how they’d give players A, B and C for a superstar that’s on the trading block—mostly because they want to get rid of players A, B and C. If you don’t want them, what makes you think anyone else is going to want them? The truth is, NO ONE wants your pu-pu platter of prospects that you’ve given up on. Save yourself the effort and keep your wet dream to yourself. At the end of the day, you’re just annoying the rest of us.

6. I know that people love to talk about potential trades and rumors that are floating around—but the rumors are absolutely worthless. Scratch that, they’re less than worthless. They’re about as useful as a straight guy at a phone sex site. The truth is that nobody really knows about the big trades until they’re already completed and the press release has been delivered. You’re more than welcome to continue to waste your time with Eklund’s rumor sites, but you’re simply wasting your time. If you hear about a rumor, that’s a pretty sure sign that it’s not going to happen.

7. Always remember that it takes longer for defensemen to develop! Sometimes you’ll see a team give up a little too early on a young defenseman because they get impatient. It takes time to learn the position—just look at a guy like Kyle Quincey. Sometimes different teams are at different points in their development. Teams that are competing for the Stanley Cup TODAY probably don’t want to go through the growing pains of a young defenseman. But teams that are rebuilding their foundations are much more likely to accept a young player’s learning curve.

8. Draft picks are only valuable if your GM and scouting staff are good. If your organization isn’t good at the draft table, that all important 2nd round pick that’s included in a deal doesn’t mean shit. Take a look at these stats from 1990-99 and tell me how important those mid-round picks are:

– 63% of 1st round picks play at least 200 career games. (That doesn’t necessarily mean they play those 200 games well)
– About 25% of guys drafted in the 2nd round go onto play at least 200 career games.
– About 12% of guys that are drafted in Rounds 3 and on go onto play at least 200 NHL games (Yes, Ken Holland is pretty good).

9. Remember, the goal at the end of the day is to win the Cup. It’s not to sneak in the playoffs, not to get close to the playoffs for a moral victory—it’s the Stanley Cup. If you’re not actively trying to win a cup this year, then you damn well better have a plan mapped out to when you plan on winning the cup. Keep that in mind when you see a trade go down. When you see an average team trade prospects for a 3rd liner at the trade deadline, ask yourself this: “is he a difference maker?” If your answer is NO, then who the hell cares?

10. Brian Burke is an asshat.

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Just as a side note, those artificial, self imposed caps that some teams are setting for themselves are bullshit. If teams are setting their own budgets because they can’t afford to break even, then the salary cap is too fucking high. If all teams aren’t spending to the cap, then why did we lose a year? Oh, that’s right—we didn’t lose a year for the fans. We lost a year for the owners and their pursuit for “cost certainty.” Spend to the salary cap or fix the flawed system. If you’re not going to pay to put the best product on the ice, then don’t complain when your attendance (and revenue) plummet because your team can’t win any games. Like anything else in this world, you get what you pay for. I have no sympathy for cheap multimillionaires when it comes to their NHL play toys.

Keep all of these things in mind when you start to see the trades go down this offseason. With teams positioning themselves for a Stanley Cup run this season, other teams pressed up against the salary cap or with any eye towards an uncertain economic future; there will be plenty of teams making moves in the next year for completely different reasons. Before you declare victory or bitter defeat in any upcoming trades, take a step back and try to figure out WHY each team made a trade. Once you figure out the teams’ priorities, you’ll be able to tell if they accomplished their goals.

I’m sure there are plenty more things to think about when it comes to trades. What are some of the things that YOU look for when you hear about a trade? Do you put more emphasis on prospects? Draft picks? Is there something else that you look towards that I missed? As always, let’s hear what you have!

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