Grading the Ryan Dzingel trade between the Carolina Hurricanes, Ottawa Senators

Let’s grade the trade that saw the Ottawa Senators acquire Ryan Dzingle from the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday.

The hockey gods decided to treat us to a trade this past weekend and, although it was only a minor one in the grand scheme of things, it was still a trade nonetheless as the Ottawa Senators acquired forward Ryan Dzingle from the Carolina Hurricanes, sending forward Cedric Paquette and Alex Galchenyuk in the opposite direction.

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We have already studied this transaction from the standpoint of the Senators, mapping out why this deal hammers home the point that they are committing fully to their rebuild in 2020-21. However, this is also an interesting trade through the prism of the Hurricanes, and we are going to attempt to breakdown every single possible angle before grading this deal for both teams.

We are going to give this trade two separate grades, one for the Ottawa Senators and one for the Carolina Hurricanes, and we’ll start by delving into this deal through the prism of the Sens. So, without further ado, let’s go!

Grading the Ryan Dzingel trade between the Ottawa Senators and Carolina Hurricanes

This was a fairly straightforward transaction for the Senators who acquired just the one player in Ryan Dzingel, sending two players in the opposite direction to the Carolina Hurricanes in veteran forward Cedric Paquette and much-travelled center Alex Galchenyuk.

As we explained on Saturday, it is clear with this trade that the Senators are going all in on the rebuild this season given that they created roster space by giving up two players, paving the way for some of their prospects and young studs in the ilk of Logan Brown, Drake Batherson and Colin White to step up and log bigger minutes and grab bigger roles with the team. Ottawa will not be a postseason team in 2020-21, they are likely to be a high Lottery team, so it is important that the biggest pieces of their future develop and improve this year.

This was also a win-win and low-risk move for the Senators considering that Ryan Dzingel is a player who has the ability and has a chip on his shoulder following a short and, ultimately, failed cup of coffee with the Carolina Hurricanes. Dzingel, who was drafted with the 204th overall pick by Ottawa in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, recorded just 29 points (8 G, 21 A) in 64 regular-season games for the Canes in 2019-20, while he began this year with 2 goals and 2 assists for 4 points in 11 games.

Therefore, Dzingel will be out to resurrect his career and repair his reputation in the market where he began his career, and if he is able to do exactly that then that will only help the Ottawa Senators this year given that they will gain both a scoring punch and a player who can be used on the power play.

Also, should the 28-year-old get hot and rediscover the secret sauce that saw him record 56 points (26 G, 30 A) in 2018-19, then that will only boost his trade value and he could be used as a tantalizing piece to flip at the Trade Deadline, thus netting the Senators yet more future assets they can use to help accelerate their rebuild. Or, the front office could decide to sign the pending UFA to a team-friendly deal next offseason at a lesser cap hit than his current AAV of $3,375,000.

So, overall, this was a trade that made a lot of sense for the Ottawa Senators who parted ways with two forwards who didn’t have long-term futures with this team and likely wouldn’t have held much trade value come the Trade Deadline, while acquiring a player in Ryan Dzingel who has higher upside than both Cedric Paquette and Alex Galchenyuk, so he can help this rebuilding team now while also potentially netting the franchise more draft capital at the Deadline if he can get hot between now and then.

Plus, the Senators only signed Galchenyuk to a team-friendly one-year, $1,050,000 deal and they traded two big contracts in Anders Nilsson and Marian Gaborik for Paquette, so they have lost very little and could end up gaining a hell of a lot if this particular trade pans out. Only time will tell.