Deadline day: Senators trade Coburn and Reilly creating opportunity for Erik Brannstrom
Looking over Pierre Dorion’s body of work, his best trades were a function of the decision to rebuild. Selling assets to the highest bidder has been Dorion’s bread and butter since inheriting the general manager role from Bryan Murray.
Once it was announced at noon yesterday that defenceman Cody Goloubef had signed a contract for the remainder of the season, the writing was clearly on the wall that the Senators would be moving out a few bodies. By 11 o’clock last night, Dorion had completed two separate deals getting a headstart on this afternoon’s deadline.
In the first deal, the Senators sent Mike Reilly to the Boston Bruins in exchange for a 2022 third-round pick. With Charlie McAvoy, Brandon Carlo and John Moore on the injured reserve, the Bruins desperately needed a quality depth option and got one in Reilly. Shortly after the Reilly trade was reported, it was followed by the announcement that Braydon Coburn had been deal to the New York Islanders in exchange for a 2022 seventh-round pick.
In the week leading up to today’s deadline, Senators head coach D.J. Smith indicated that down the stretch, Erik Brannstrom would be playing a lot of hockey and he wasn’t kidding. After the two trades, the Senators’ depth on the left side has been reduced to the point where Smith literally has no choice but to give significant minutes to Brannstrom over the next 14 games.
Acquiring the two 2022 draft picks is interesting for several reasons. With the pandemic wiping out a large portion of recent scouting opportunities for the 2021 draft, an added wrinkle to the draft could create some unpredictability. Rankings may skew towards the players who played more games this season and because of it, there may be more situations where good prospects fall through the cracks and go later than they should simply because of some unfortunate circumstances.
From the Senators’ perspective, adding two picks to the 2022 class – which is generally regarded as a stronger class – makes a lot of sense. With the picks from the Islanders and Bruins, the Senators now have 11 picks in that draft with two picks in the second and third rounds. That surplus of picks gives the Senators a lot of flexibility. Dorion can use that draft capital to address a need in the offseason, package some of that surplus to move up at the draft or simply keep the picks to add more young depth to the farm system.
One Twitter follower raised an interesting point.
Hopefully, it is a question that is asked of Dorion once the deadline has passed. Until then, we will never know whether the Senators passed up on an opportunity to grab a higher pick or two. In not acquiring any 2021 picks, the Senators are affording their scouts more opportunity to view the prospect landscape and get a more confident opinion of who they want to take.
There is certainly an advantage to waiting on 2022, but it’s not exclusive to the Senators. Every other organization will be afforded the same luxury. While there may be more volatility and an opportunity to find a hidden gem in this year’s class because of it, the circumstances create a great deal of risk that they could whiff as well. For a small scouting staff, it may make more sense for the organization to go with a more conservative approach, especially since it is supposed to be the stronger draft.
Although there were reports that the Senators were exploring contract terms with Mike Reilly, it never really felt like a deal was close. From the organization’s perspective, projecting out with Thomas Chabot, Jake Sanderson and Erik Brannstrom on the left side, those three should be regulars in the lineup by the end of the 2021-22 season when Sanderson is done school. Or at the latest, barring a trade, these three young players should be anchoring the Senators’ left defence by the start of the 2022-23 season.
In knowing that there is probably one season left where the Senators need a placeholder, it never really made sense for the team to overextend itself to Reilly and risk boxing out its prospects. And from Reilly’s perspective, he is probably looking to cash in on a multi-year deal after what has been a relatively successful year playing on the Senators’ second pairing.
In a league that is constantly putting more emphasis on underlying numbers, puck-moving ability and driving possession, I had some hope that the Senators would be able to recoup more than a third-round pick. That isn’t meant to diminish the Senators’ return. If a third-round pick was the best available offer to Dorion, he had to take it before Boston moved onto other alternatives.
Acquired for a fifth-round pick, Reilly became a decent puck-moving option for the Senators. When he was on the ice at five-on-five this season, the Senators generated the majority of the total shots (52.19 CF%), shots on goal (52.57 SF%), scoring chances (52.19 SCF%) and expected goals (51.33 xGF%) per NaturalStatTrick.com.
I realize there is a tendency to portray Artyom Zub as the principal factor that buoyed Ottawa’s second pairing. According to Evolving-Hockey.com’s defensive pairing tool evaluator, the Reilly-Zub pairing generated an expected goals for percentage of 51.28 (xGF%). The pairing’s play has regressed in recent weeks, but of the 83 defensive pairs that have logged over 200 minutes together, this unheralded pairing still had the 37th-highest xGF%.
To Reilly’s credit, he has put up some decent underlying metrics away from Zub however.
Looking at Reilly’s isolated impact this season from HockeyViz.com, he had a pretty impressive year.
Historically however, Reilly was surprisingly just as good from a puck-moving perspective last season. He helped the Senators create more offensive pressure and he did it while spending most of his time anchored by Nikita Zaitsev.
That is not easy to do and it’s part of the reason why I was hoping that some other organization would have valued Reilly’s contributions a little more. Although they are different players, for me, the deal is reminiscent of last year’s Dylan DeMelo trade that returned a third-round pick of its own. It’s not that the deals were bad, it’s just that you’re left wishing that the seller’s market was stronger and would have fetched the Senators a higher pick. At the same time however, the fact that the Senators got anything of value whatsoever for Coburn is a win, is a win, is a win.
With the departures of Coburn and Reilly, it creates a sizable void on the left side. The Senators have promoted Olle Alsing from the taxi squad, but the real beneficiary of this freed-up ice time is Erik Brannstrom. Assuming Thomas Chabot continues to be partnered with Nikita Zaitsev, there should be a real opportunity for Brannstrom over the next 14 games to showcase what he can do and give a good representation of himself by playing predominantly on the team’s second pairing with Artyom Zub.
Throughout the course of this season, the two have only played approximately 18 minutes together, but Zub is one of the best insulators on the roster. It is a soft-landing spot for Brannstrom and the Senators desperately need Brannstrom to step in and excel.
As it currently stands, the only defencemen under team control for next season are Thomas Chabot, Nikita Zaitsev, Artyom Zub, Brannstrom, Jacob Bernard-Docker and Josh Brown. Jake Sanderson will eventually slide into a left defence role in the top-four, but if Brannstrom plays well, Ottawa’s left side will be a pillar of strength. If he doesn’t however, it will not only raise questions about the team’s depth next season, but it will put Brannstrom’s future with the organization under the microscope. The Senators may elect to bolster their top-four with more veteran options anyway, but if Brannstrom falters, it will certainly lend itself to fueling such a decision.
Other Senators news and notes:
According to Bruce Garrioch, the Senators are receiving considerable interest in Erik Gudbranson. Given Gudbranson’s performance this season, it is easy to wonder whether this is simply Pierre Dorion using the media as a vehicle to spur interest in a player. If the report is true however, the Senators should capitalize on that interest to return an asset.
A prospective Gudbranson trade is interesting from a human element perspective. Having just had a child this past week, uprooting Gudbranson from his family at this time during the pandemic would be unfortunate. Towards the deadline last year, Dorion told local media that he informed Mark Borowiecki earlier in the season that he would not be dealt because of his newborn. To this point, there have been no reports of the same courtesy being extended to Gudbranson.
Shane Pinto and Jacob Bernard-Docker skated for the first time this morning with their teammates. Pinto will begin his Senators career wearing #57 while Bernard-Docker will wear #48. Expect both players to make their NHL debuts Wednesday night against the Jets.
For those keeping tabs on Anton Forsberg’s future and the possibility that he could be dealt to a team needing goaltending depth, Forsberg was in the starter’s net at practice today. Matt Murray is expected to be the back him up for tonight’s game against the Jets.