Winnipeg Jets get underwhelming return for Jacob Trouba

The Winnipeg Jets, as expected, traded defenseman Jacob Trouba. However, the return they got for him was far less than expected.

Everyone knew the Winnipeg Jets were going to trade defenseman Jacob Trouba. He had just one year left of team control and showed no interest in signing an extension. On Monday, June 17, the Jets did what everyone expected them to do by trading Trouba to the team everyone thought he would be traded to – the New York Rangers.

However, the Jets got far less than what everyone thought they would get. Here at Puck Prose, we thought the 20th overall pick and the RFA rights to Pavel Buchnevich would be a fair trade. The Jets would get their own first-round pick back and get a very talented forward.

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Well, we were half right – Winnipeg did wind up getting their first round pick back from the Rangers. You could even argue we were 75% right because they got someone’s RFA rights. But instead of Buchnevich, the Jets got the RFA rights to defenseman Neal Pionk.

Who Is Pionk?

Pionk is a young defenseman at 23 years old (though he turns 24 in July), but he’s starting to approach the point of no return. He’s probably about as good right now as he’ll ever be.

Pionk was the Rangers most-used right-handed defenseman last season. He played over 21 minutes per game for them, including over 15 minutes per game at five-on-five. Pionk on the second-pairing and sometimes top-pairing. His most common defensive partner was Marc Staal.

However, it’s clear he shouldn’t have been a second-pairing, let alone a top-pairing, defenseman. Here’s how Pionk ranked at five-on-five among Rangers blueliners (minimum 500 minutes). Data is via Natural Stat Trick.

• Corsi Against per hour: 61.74 (third-highest) (remember, allowing more shots against is bad)
• Corsi For per hour: 48.89 (third-lowest)
• Corsi differential: -249 (second-worst)
• Corsi For percentage: 44.20% (second-worst)
• Expected Goals For percentage: 45.04% (second-worst)
• Scoring Changes For percentage: 43.84% (worst)
• High Danger Scoring Chances For Percentage: 44.23% (second-worst)

Among the 186 NHL defensemen with at least 650 minutes at five-on-five (which gives us six defensemen for each of the 31 teams), here’s how he ranked.

• Goals per hour: 0.1 (138th)
• Primary assists per hour: 0.05 (184th)
• Total assists per hour: 0.36 (165th)
• Total points per hour: 0.46 (166th)
• Corsi For percentage: 44.20% (178th)
• Goals For percentage: 40% (175th)
• Expected Goals For percentage: 45.04% (166th)

As you can see, Pionk is a third-pairing defenseman at five-on-five at best.

The Upside

Jets fans are probably upset at this point, and understandably so. So what does Pionk do well? Can he be salvaged by the Jets?

Most of his value comes on the power play. Pionk is a legitimate threat there. Among defensemen with at least 75 minutes on the power play, he ranked sixth in points per hour, behind Erik Karlsson, Dustin Byfuglien, Torey Krug, Keith Yandle, and Matt Dumba.

Unfortunately, Byfuglien is on the Jets and, when healthy, he’s their top power play quarterback. At 34 years old, though, the Jets have to manage his minutes better. Pionk could help by taking on the top power play quarterback role, but this would be a lateral move at best.

The pairing of Marc Staal and Pionk was objectively the Rangers worst pairing. Among their pairings who received at least 400 minutes of playing time together, they had the worst Corsi For percentage (41.49%), Goals For percentage (37.74%), and Expected Goals For percentage (44.11%).

Pionk’s numbers away from Staal weren’t great, but he was noticeably better away from Staal. It’s baffling why the Rangers gave them so much time together.

Without Trouba, the Jets defense is suddenly not nearly as deep as it once was. But if they re-sign Tyler Myers or add another right-handed defenseman, Pionk could slide into a much more appropriate third-pairing role. He could develop his game there, which is a luxury he never had with the Rangers.

Pionk has some interesting tools. He’s a very good skater and, if he can get out of the defensive zone, he can do impressive things with the puck. Pionk could flourish in a sheltered role against lesser competition. Unfortunately, that’s not what you want to get for someone as good as Trouba.

The First-Round Pick

The 20th overall pick is most likely the most valuable piece in this trade. This NHL draft is a deep one and there should be a number of intriguing prospects available late in the first round. That said, the Jets probably aren’t finding anyone who will ever be as good as Trouba is right now.

Verdict

This is an extremely underwhelming return for Trouba. While he only had one year left on his deal and his refusal to sign an extension likely hurt his value, teams regularly get more than this at the trade deadline for lesser players. It almost feels like the Jets were deadset on trading Trouba and didn’t want to wait for better offers.

Effectively, the Jets gave up Trouba and Brendan Lemieux (who is a useful forward) for Pionk and not even two full months of Kevin Hayes. Maybe the reason why general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff doesn’t like to make trades is that he’s bad at them.