The latest talk revolving around the Montreal Canadiens giving up Max Domi in a possible Jonas Brodin trade and if that happens, it can’ be a one-for-one.
Marc Bergevin has a history of one-for-one trades. The most famous one in recent memory is Shea Weber for P.K. Subban, while the Alex Galchenyuk one-for-one saw the Montreal Canadiens acquire Max Domi from the Arizona Coyotes, which brings us to yesterday’s news on the Habs’ third-line centre about management willing to part with Domi in a trade for Jonas Brodin.
Michael Russo’s snippet in the TradeCentre article didn’t say much about the nature of the deal. If all this is true, and the Montreal Canadiens are in on Brodin with Domi going the other way, the Wild defenceman can’t be the only piece the Habs get back.
Brodin is a second-pairing defenceman for the Minnesota Wild averaging about 21 and a half minutes a night. He’s been the “responsible” portion of that pairing, allowing Matt Dumba to play the puck and be more offensive while he stays along the blueline. What is concerning is Brodin isn’t much of an upgrade from what the Montreal Canadiens have in Ben Chiarot.
Offensively, Chiarot is a better option. He generates more shots than Brodin; however, the Wild defenceman is much better at suppressing shots. RelCA/60 tells us this, showing how many shots are directed towards their own net when they’re on the ice vs. off the ice. When looking at this metric, the lower the number, the better.
Chiarot is at 1.52, while Brodin is at -4.05. To add another name into the comparison, Brett Kulak has a RelCA/60 of -5.26, which is better than the other two players. Chiarot is the best of the three in terms of shot generation (RelCF/60) at 5v5 with a 3.5 while Brodin and Kulak are in the negatives at -4.84 and -0.19 respectively. When looking at shot generation, it’s the opposite of shot suppression where the more positive the number, the better.