Alex DeBrincat Dealt to the Red Wings

The Alex DeBrincat saga has drawn to a close.

The Senators dealt the restricted free agent to his hometown Detroit Red Wings last night for Dominik Kubalik, prospect Donovan Sebrango, a conditional 2024 first-round pick and a fourth-round pick in 2024.

The conditions of the 2024 first-round pick were outlined in the Senators’ official press release:

The initial condition on the first-round pick is as follows -- the Red Wings will have the option of sending their own 2024 first-round pick or Boston's 2024 first-round pick (previously acquired on March 2, 2023) to Ottawa. However, if the Bruins' 2024 first-round selection is an eventual top-10 pick (following the annual draft lottery), Boston will have the option of retaining the pick and transferring its 2025 unprotected first-round selection to Detroit. The Red Wings will then have the option of sending that draft pick or their own first-round pick in 2024 to the Senators to complete this trade.

Kubalik is the lone NHL-ready piece, so I’ll start here. He turns 28 years of age on August 21st and he will likely fill an offensive depth role for the Senators. To his credit, the left winger has had success in the NHL before.

After being selected by the Los Angeles Kings in the seventh round of the 2013 NHL Draft, the Chicago Blackhawks acquired the Czech-born forward for a fifth-round pick. In his first season with the Blackhawks, Kubalik tallied 30 goals and 46 points earning him Calder Trophy finalist honours for his efforts.

In his last three seasons, Kubalik has failed to replicate that success and a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that his shooting percentage in 2019-20 (19.1 percent) has effectively been cut in half. Kubalik’s still a relatively strong finisher, but regression from his 2019-20 should have been expected and to hold him to that standard at this point in time would be unfair.

Last season in Detroit, Kubalik scored 20 goals and put up 45 points. Not terrible numbers, but not quite a level of production that is really worth getting too excited. Kubalik fell one point shy of matching his career-high in points, but it is worth mentioning that he spent the bulk of his season playing alongside Detroit’s two best play drivers at five-on-five - Dylan Larkin and David Perron.

As a finisher who relies on his teammates to drive the play from the defensive zone to the offensive zone, he may not get a similar level of opportunity in Ottawa. Brady Tkachuk already plays with the team’s best centre in Tim Stützle and there are rumours that the Senators are kicking tires on adding another top-six forward like Vladimir Tarasenko.

Kubalik also plays his off-side on the power play where he can take advantage of his best offensive weapon, his one-timer. With Josh Norris manning that spot on Ottawa’s top unit, Kubalik will likely be relegated to fewer opportunities on the second unit.

He is also in the last year of the two-year deal that he signed with Detroit last summer that pays him $2.5 million and carries a cap hit at the same figure. It’s a relatively affordable figure for the production, but on a one-year deal, Kubalik feels more like a stopgap than an asset that the team will move forward with for the future.

As an impending unrestricted free agent next summer, the Senators can use this season as a free look to determine whether he fits past this season as a depth option. There is the added flexibility that if the team falls out of it, they can move him at the deadline for another future asset.

Kubalik’s underlying numbers are not particularly encouraging lately. After an unbelievably effective first season, Kubalik’s been a below-average generator of expected goals and shots at five-on-five. Using HockeyViz’s isolated offensive and defensive impact data, it is easier to see visually.

Last season was arguably the worst season of Kubalik’s career from an all-around perspective and as a player who is exiting the prime years of his career, this downward trend is not particularly encouraging. The further we get away from that fortunate 2019-2020 season, the less likely it is that we will see him replicate that level of production.

Donovan Sebrango is a left-shot defensive prospect that was drafted in the third round of the 2020 NHL Draft (63rd overall). The 21-year-old was also born in Ottawa, so you can scratch that one off your Senators’ bingo card.

In his mid-season organizational rankings, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler had this write-up on Sebrango, his 14th-ranked skater in the Red Wings’ system:

“It has been a bit of an up-and-down year for Sebgrango. I thought he started the year strong in Grand Rapids, but when he hit a rough patch and then got caught in the numbers game, he was sent to the ECHL, it took him some time to find his presence there (he can play with a lot of presence — a hard thing to describe — when he’s playing firm and aggressive), but he found it and had an excellent January and I expect you’ll see him back in Grand Rapids before the season is done.

He’s a physical, hard-nosed defender who has driven defensive results across levels without ever being a highly productive player. There are times when his first touch isn’t the smoothest and I’d like him to make the long play instead of the rushed one under pressure, but I don’t think he needs to change his game to be effective and I get the sense he doesn’t care to (he trusts in who he is out there). He plays a step-up style. His skating and mobility has gone from below NHL average to at it. He makes consistently choices with the puck, he’s capable of stretching the ice as an outlet passer, he blocks every shot he can, I like the routes he takes, and there’s a maturity to his game that might push him into No. 6-7 role eventually, even if this year feels like a ‘setback.’”

When two of the known pieces in the trade offer you one year of team control (Kubalik) and the other projects as a depth defenceman, it is easy to understand why the return feels light — especially since DeBrincat immediately signed an extension giving the Red Wings four years of control at a reasonable cost. By failing to acquire any of Detroit’s young NHL-ready talent or more highly ranked prospects in what is widely regarded as one of the league’s best farm systems, it stings.

The most valuable piece in the deal will likely be the conditional first-round pick, but if things break poorly for the Senators, chances are we are looking at a mid to late first-rounder in 2024. The wrinkle here are the conditions. If under some miraculous circumstance, the Bruins and Red Wings both stink in 2023-24 and wind up having top-10 picks, the Bruins will “have the option of retaining the pick and transferring its 2025 unprotected first-round selection to Detroit.” If that happens, it puts the Red Wings in a position next summer to decide whether they want to move their 2024 first to the Senators or give the Senators Boston’s 2025 first-rounder.

Albeit, 2025 feels like a long way down the road, but if everything breaks right for Ottawa, maybe there is a chance that an aging Bruins squad could descend into mediocrity like the Sharks did in 2019-20 — gift-wrapping the Senators Tim Stützle. Crazier things have happened and sometimes those trades that appear to be terrible on the surface can have a way of working out.

There is also the possibility that avoiding a long-term extension with Alex DeBrincat may ultimately wind up benefiting the team down the road in terms of their roster composition and payroll allocation. As much as DeBrincat’s 27 goals and 66 points in a down season were welcomed, what was disappointing about his play was how little impact he had as a play driver. For the salary and term that DeBrincat was expected to seek in a deal with the Senators, I can understand the hesitancy to give him a max-level contract in value and term when he had such little impact driving play or defending.

One of the lamest parts about this situation is how DeBrincat and his agent are being portrayed. He didn’t choose to come to Ottawa and no one should begrudge the player for wanting to return and play at home closer to family.

The Senators took a risk and this situation unfolded as poorly as it could have. A significant opportunity cost was used to bring in DeBrincat and he underperformed.

Given where the team was at it in its development curve, I am not mad that the organization targeted and acquired a 24-year-old winger who put up two 40-goal seasons and if not for an abbreviated 2020-21 campaign, would have had a third. For once, they moved assets for an established young player who was in his prime and had a chance to grow with the young core here.

In saying that, it is absolutely fair to question why a general manager would go all-in on a player and give themselves this one-year window to put their best foot forward without ever addressing the quality of the blue line that same offseason. To Dorion’s credit, I don’t doubt that he tried, but in professional sports, participation ribbons are never handed out at the end of a season. We never judge individuals exclusively on due diligence. We also need results and on that, Dorion has never delivered. Despite all his efforts, he failed to improve the quality of the blue line until the trade deadline and he has to own that.

There is certainly something to be said about asset management and a franchise acquiring an expensive player on a one-year deal when the team was not expected to be good, but Dorion took a calculated risk to acquire a DeBrincat without knowing whether or not he would stay.

That was his choice and his choice alone. No one can hang this one on Eugene Melnyk or his meddling, this was the general manager’s choice and it blew up in his face.

If this was an organization that was close to contention or vying for a Stanley Cup, DeBrincat was a gamble that carried a little less risk. For the Senators, who were nowhere close to that level of competitiveness, the risk was exponentially greater. To see the organization turn a top-10 pick into a one-year veteran, a fringe prospect and a lesser first-round pick that reasonably projects to be a middle to late first rounder, is frustrating on so many levels.

Perhaps it would have been better to hold onto DeBrincat through to the 2023-24 deadline. The team would probably be better on paper and maybe an inspired DeBrincat could have been motivated to put his best foot forward as he headed towards unrestricted free agency in 2024. Without a trade clause, perhaps more teams would have been interested in him as a rental and could have offered more valuable future assets than what Ottawa got back now. On the other hand, what would the team have done if they were in the playoff hunt near the deadline? Would they move him? What if he got hurt? They could ill afford to lose him for nothing.

The time to move him was now, but it’s easy to believe this is another example of the team taking one step forward to take two steps back. As they are currently positioned, I’m concerned about the quality of the Senators’ depth. Even with the team being linked to Vladimir Tarasenko, where is the money coming from to sign him?

CapFriendly currently has Ottawa’s roster at 20 players with approximately $5 million in cap space to sign Shane Pinto and bring in another left winger. Unless Tarasenko’s signing on the cheap, how is the team going to create the space to sign him? Perhaps more importantly, should the Senators be targeting other alternatives?

They will have to subtract from their depth to sign him and their quality of depth is already suspect. Would the team move a Mathieu Joseph or an Erik Brannstrom to create more cap space and would their replacements be able to capably step in and deliver?

For the first time, we are starting to see the flaws of the Dorion era emerge as this team’s young core are established and productive. The rest of the roster feels piecemeal and hastily

and have an impact on a roster that should be further ahead than it is at this stage. It’s almost crazy to think that in the last six drafts, the Senators have had six top-10 picks and with three of those picks, the team has little to show for it. Hopefully, Tyler Boucher restores some of his luster as a prospect, but I don’t believe there is another general manager out there who could have survived the mistakes that Dorion has made.

With a farm system that was ranked in the bottom third of the league before the 2023 NHL Draft and resembles one that a Stanley Cup contender who has spent years drafting in the back half of the first round or has dealt multiple picks should have. Without many safely projectable prospects with upside, it puts more pressure on management to find undervalued players who can outperform their contracts. Under Dorion, the Senators have struggled with their inability to target and acquire these types of players. And, all these problems are now manifesting on the parent roster.

It is salvageable, but what the last few years have demonstrated is that Dorion’s not the right person for this job. The organization and its fans deserve a progressive and creative mind who has the ability to reshape this front office in their vision.

This trade should be the final nail in Dorion’s coffin and it is long overdue.