The Ottawa Senators have traded for Matt Duchene. But how much better does he make them?
The Ottawa Senators have gone all-in pushing their chips into the middle of the table. By trading for Matt Duchene, they’ve signified to the rest of the league the Senators are in win-now mode.
By acquiring him in a three-way deal, which saw Ottawa trade away Kyle Turris, Andrew Hammond, Shane Bowers, along with 2018 first-round and third-round draft picks, the Senators activated a two-year window towards winning the Stanley Cup.
The problem with activating the window is the Senators might think by acquiring Duchene, they are good enough to win. But they aren’t. Duchene in the lineup over Turris is only a minor upgrade at best for Ottawa.
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Turris is incredibly underrated because he doesn’t score highlight-reel goals. His strong two-way game is exactly the type of play needed come playoff time. He proved it by being a major contributor towards the Senators run to the Eastern Conference Finals last season.
Duchene is considered better offensively than Turris. However, the latter actually produced more points in two of the past three seasons. Duchene has six more points overall if you combine all three seasons. But then again, he also played in 18 more games.
Duchene’s defensive game also has some wondering if he’s even a center or if he’s better suited to be a winger. He can win faceoffs but struggles defensively against opposing centers. Something that’ll only get harder in the Eastern Conference when he faces the likes of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Auston Matthews, Patrice Bergeron, Steven Stamkos, Jack Eichel, and Nicklas Backstrom.
Still, Duchene is going to need to rely on his offense to justify the price Ottawa paid to acquire him. The problem is the forward who is in his ninth season in the league has only managed to break the 60 point total twice. Duchene is also known for his speed while Ottawa’s wingers are not, which means he could struggle to find the chemistry needed to break the 60-point total.
Even if Duchene manages to take his game to another level it will no doubt put Ottawa in a difficult salary cap situation when their two-year window will slam shut.. The contracts of Duchene, Erik Karlsson, and Derrick Brassard will all be expiring at the end of the 2018-19 season. It’ll be impossible to bring everybody back, as Karlsson alone will receive a contract paying him something in the neighborhood of $10 million to $12 million per season.
If Duchene was a free agent today, he would get at least $8 million per year. If he plays well in Ottawa he could bump that number up to $10 million.
Which means Derrick Brassard’s time as a Senator is officially on the clock as he’ll likely be gone as the cost of re-signing Duchene. Factor in Ottawa re-signing Cody Ceci and Matt Stone to new deals after this season and there simply won’t be enough cap space for Brassard.
There might not be enough cap space for much else given some of the awful contracts on the payroll beyond the 2018-19 season. Bobby Ryan and Dion Phaneuf’s combined $14.25-million cap hit is already an issue and it’ll only get worse in two years.
Very rarely do teams that trade five assets for only one in return end up winning the deal in the long run. If Duchene doesn’t live up to the high-expectations fans will have for him then the assets given up, especially the draft picks, will sting twice as much. A first and third round pick is a lot to give up for a player everybody knew wanted out of town
Ottawa will try to claim Turris was never going to re-sign given his expiring contract but we’ll never know if that was true or not. Senators’ management have had a history of playing hardball in contract negotiations. After all, they are the reason fans had to endure the awful visual of Daniel Alfredsson in a Detroit Red Wings jersey.
Who’s to say Duchene even wants to re-sign when his contract expires. It’s not like the Senators haven’t also had a history of players eager to leave town.
Next: Grading the Matt Duchene Blockbuster
Regardless of what happens in the summer of 2019, the Senators are fooling themselves if they think they are a vastly better team with Duchene. They just might not realize it until discovering they have a lot less assets to work with in order to improve the roster.