Save for a random minor hockey trade, the hockey news tends to slow down a fair bit over the summer. Hockey fans rejoiced as Derick Brassard of the New York Rangers and a 2018 seventh-round pick were traded to the Senators for Mika Zibanejad and a 2018 second-round pick. As far as mid-July trades go, this is a pretty exciting one.
#NHLTrade Alert: Derick Brassard traded to @Senators by @NYRangers for @MikaZibanejad and future Draft pick. https://t.co/20a7rD5gFN
— NHL (@NHL) July 18, 2016
The trade clearly sets the teams off on two separate paths starting as early as next season. The Rangers, who may have realized that the makeup of their team wasn’t exactly great, realized that they needed to rebuild on the fly. Meanwhile, the Senators believe that they are a team that can compete for a Stanley Cup as soon as 2016-17. Both teams may be slightly delusional. The Rangers are the more competitive of the two and could have held onto Brassard until the end of his contract and no one would have batted an eye. Acquiring Zibanejad isn’t going to turn back the clock for them at all, but it also won’t hurt either. Growth is a possibility, but it is a pretty low risk move.
The Senators on the other hand are a team that didn’t qualify for the playoffs last year and are going all-in like they are a team that made the Final. The Atlantic Division is weak, but not so weak that they can run through the entire season with ease. Brassard is probably the better player as of this moment, but the problem becomes Zibanejad’s growth and the shortsighted nature of this trade. The Senators shouldn’t be making such risky investments when they don’t have a team that is worth fighting for quite yet.
https://twitter.com/JeffVeillette/status/755098922125787136
If Zibanejad can become a more complete player, the Rangers won this trade by a large margin as he has a chance to be something special in his prime. Brassard is solid and has been regressing bit by bit. It is a tale of two teams trying to find their footing. Maybe in this case it is a tie. How often does that happen?
