Trade: Senators Acquire Mike Amadio from Kings for Christian Wolanin
After Christian Wolanin cleared waivers, the Senators announced this afternoon that they have traded the defenceman to the Los Angeles Kings for Mike Amadio.
Amadio was a third round selection of the Kings (90th overall) in 2014. He will turn 25 years old this May, so like Wolanin, Amadio is in his mid-20’s but does not have a long NHL track record to speak of.
Over parts of four NHL seasons, the forward has played in 168 career games and has 16 goals and 39 points. Despite his modest offensive numbers, Amadio has been a relatively efficient shooter during his NHL career. He has a career shooting percentage of 8.7-percent, but in his first two seasons in the league, he shot 14.3 and 16.2-percent respectively.
Amadio will never be mistaken as a volume shooter, but he appears to be an opportunistic one. In looking at a video of all his goals from the 2019-20 season, it is easy to see why.
I have already written about what Wolanin offered the Senators, so I will not go into great detail about it here. With Wolanin gone, fans will want to know what Amadio brings to the table.
First and foremost, Amadio gives the Senators a bit of positional flexibility in that he can play centre or on the right wing. Aside from the modest offensive talent, Amadio has had success at the AHL level playing at a near point-per-game pace with 35 goals and 104 points in 130 games.
At the NHL level however, Amadio has not had a ton of impact. In his first three seasons, he played at a level that was slightly above that of a replacement level player. According to Evolving-Hockey.com, his most valuable season was the 2018-19 season in which he scored six goals and 13 points in 43 games for a ‘Wins Above Replacement’ value of 1.3.
At the very least, Amadio will give the organization a bit of forward depth for the immediate future. Although he may not draw into the lineup right away, in the event of an injury, Amadio represents an upgrade on alternatives like Micheal Haley and Artem Anisimov. And with Austin Watson’s injury and the likelihood that a player like Ryan Dzingel could get moved, Amadio’s addition helps ensure that the organization does not have to empty the ranks in Belleville.
It also would not be a modern Senators trade if I did not mention money. With Wolanin ($900,000) and Amadio ($700,000) both in the last years of their one-way contracts, the Senators will actually save money on this deal.
Amadio has not scored a goal this season, however. In 20 games, he only has two assists to his credit, so the Senators are buying low here. Although it’s worth keeping in mind that after Wolanin was placed on and cleared waivers, the likelihood of him playing in the 13 games that were needed to ensure that the team kept him under team control and avoided the rare Group VI UFA rights was very small. Regardless of how anyone feels about Wolanin’s chance of turning around his career with more time and patience, that wasn’t going to happen here in Ottawa. His time here had simply drawn to a close.
Whether it was the frequent healthy scratches or the team’s actions or the messaging that was conveyed by the media, it was clear Wolanin had no future with the organization provided D.J. Smith remained as the coach.
Getting an average NHL player in exchange for a player whose upside was once believed in (and still is in some circles), certainly feels underwhelming. Ideally, getting a draft pick and rolling the dice on a lottery ticket would have been preferable, but when a player passes through waivers, making a one-for-one trade for another undesirable asset was really the only play left. If the organization was determined not to keep Wolanin as a controlled asset, getting something for nothing was the best it could do.