We May Have Just Witnessed The Most One-Sided Trade This Offseason
My Thoughts on the Ryan Johansen Acquisition by The Avs...
Sometimes in sports, and indeed in life but we’re sticking to sports here, things happen that just can’t be made sense of.
We were handed a perfect example of that on a silver platter by the Hockey Gods on Saturday.
It was announced by the Nashville Predators that they had pulled the trigger on a rare but simple and loveable player-for-player trade.
The Preds were sending veteran forward Ryan Johansen to the Colorado Avalanche, who were sending the very well-traveled Alex Galchenyuk back in return.
Social media was caught in a frenzy and you can understand why. It is a deal that can already be filed under the heading ‘the most lopsided trade of the offseason.’
And we’re only a week removed from the Vegas Golden Knights being crowned Stanley Cup Champions.
That’s how insanely one-sided this trade was. We’re hardly a week into the NHL offseason yet Avs General Manager Chris MacFarland has already low-key pulled off one of the most sneaky good bits of business we’ll see over the next few months.
It is worth noting that this trade sparked what was a bonkers day in the National Hockey League on Saturday. The Arizona Coyotes acquired defenseman Sean Durzi from the LA Kings for a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft while, at the time of writing this, we’re still waiting confirmation of an absolute blockbuster trade between the Philadelphia Flyers and the St. Louis Blues involving a slew of high-profile roster players.
Hey, we may be in the dog days of summer when it comes to hockey now, but the NHL is clearly refusing to go quietly into that long goodnight when it comes to news.
Anyway, back to the Avalanche.
They gave up a forward in Galchenyuk who, not only can’t even see his best NHL days in the rearview mirror anymore, but is also a pending unrestricted free agent. In other words, Colorado effectively gave up nothing for a player in Johansen who will seemingly anchor the second-line in 2023-24 and fill a sizeable void that has been vacated for a significant amount of time.
Not only did the Avs give up virtually nothing, but they also managed to convince Nashville to retain 50% of Johansen’s $8 million cap hit in each of the next two seasons. Again, Colorado is paying very little for a guy who will be playing top-six minutes next season.
Before we delve deeper, this is essentially a salary cap dump for Nashville. Incoming General Manager Barry Trotz, while retaining half of Johansen’s salary, has shed $4 million from the books and that will give them $19.5 million in cap space to play with, per CapFriendly. That will allow the Predators to continue to retool on the fly under new management. As for Galchenyuk, this is now the sixth time he’s been traded since being drafted No. 3 overall by the Montreal Canadiens in 2012. He likely won’t have much interest when he hits the open market in a few weeks.
This trade is really all about the Avalanche and Johansen, however.
Colorado needed to plug the hole at center on their second-line left by Nazem Kadri, who signed with the Calgary Flames in NHL Free Agency last year shortly after helping the Avs win the Stanley Cup in 2022. Plus, with Captain Gabriel Landeskog set to miss the entire 2023-24 season due to right knee surgery, there was also a real need for some secondary scoring that needed to be addressed by the Avalanche.
After all, they were clearly hurt by both Landeskog’s absence and the lack of a real second-line pivot on their way to losing to the Seattle Kraken in the First Round of this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, averaging just 2.71 Goals For Per Game in their seven postseason contests.
Of course, Johansen isn’t on the same level as a Landeskog or a Kadri, nor is he the same player he was four or five years ago. This trade would have been a lot more fun had it been made in 2015. I mean, scroll through social media and there are many people out there who think Johansen isn’t even worth $4 million a year and that he’s firmly in the back-nine of his career.
However, I think that’s grossly unfair. For starters, Johansen has been caught in a pretty stale situation in Nashville for a few years now. The Predators have been seemingly mired in mediocrity ever since reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 2017. He was also hurt for a chunk of the 2022-23 season after undergoing surgery to cure a skate blade cut to his ankle.
The whole change of scenery theory does exist and it is possible that Johansen benefits from a fresh start and the fact he’ll be playing on a contender surrounded by better players. Don’t be at all surprised if we see a true bounce-back season from the 30-year-old in 2023-24.
On the flipside, concerns over a regression in production are fair. After all, outside of a 63 point (26 G, 37 A) season in 2021-22, Johansen has tallied the following points-per-60 at even-strength totals since 2018:
2.21
1.57
1.3
1.85
1.42
But, again, while 2021-22 may serve as somewhat of an outlier, Johansen will benefit from top-six minutes with the Avalanche in 2023-24, and he’ll also enjoy a substantial bump from getting to play on the same line as Mikko Rantanen. That alone should see Johansen, who has always been seen as more of a playmaker anyway, add 20 or 30 points to his total.
Plus, Johansen will bring other intangibles to the table for Colorado too. He’s a big body at 6-foot-3, 218lb, he can play a true 500-foot game, and he’s very, very effective inside the faceoff circle. He won 59.2 percent of his draws in 2022-23, and he owns a career 53.4 winning percentage inside the dot. Those kind of attributes will help the Avs massively.
And, hey, if Johansen doesn’t work out as the second-line center, then he’s still a cost-effective option while anchoring the third-line. He may have had a rough go of it in recent years, but the 30-year-old at $4 million per year was one of the best options out there for a Colorado team short on flexibility.
This is hardly a long-term solution but, for a team with less than $10 million in cap space this offseason, it is a necessary one. The Avalanche would have paid out far more on a second-line center on the open market and they would have had to commit to a long-term contract to boot, taking away even more flexibility in the process.
By taking on Johansen who has two years left with a $4 million cap-hit, the Avs are taking a low-risk high-reward approach. They are betting that the veteran will thrive in their system with a lot more talent around him and in an environment where the Stanley Cup is the only aim. If this doesn’t work out, the Avalanche didn’t have to give up any assets and they’re still adding a very good professional to the mix who can be used up and down the lineup if needed. But, if this trade goes the other way and Johansen is able to hit on some gold in Colorado, then the Avs would have solved their big second-line center problem for nothing.
And, if Johansen does morph back into a 50 or 60-point scorer in 2023-24, then that will only serve to secure this trade’s status as the most lopsided deal we would have seen this offseason.
