Montreal Canadiens: Eric Staal Trade Is About More Than Just Numbers

The Montreal Canadiens made a trade for centre Eric Staal just one day after GM Marc Bergevin told fans and media to not wait for trades this deadline due to lack of cap space.

So often, trades are judged simply by the numbers that are produced. Did one player score more points or play in more games than the one they were traded for?

But looking at just the numbers doesn’t do this trade justice. They still look good, but they don’t tell the whole story. Not even close.

Lets look at the numbers first. Montreal recieved Eric Staal with only half of his cap hit, and Buffalo recieved a third round pick and a fifth round pick.

But what are those draft picks really? Boiled down to their essence, they are just chances of getting an NHL calibre player.

A lot of different factors go into whether or not the draft pick will be a quality one. The thing that no team can control is how good the draft class is projected to be.

Due to the pandemic and many prospects not having as much time to show off their skills, this draft is as much of a grab bag as any other. TSN analyst Bob Mackenzie says as much in his early analysis of the draft class, saying

"“TSN’s first ranking for 2021 is a mixed bag of who know’s what is being kind.”"

https://www.tsn.ca/blueliner-owen-power-tops-mckenzie-s-first-2021-draft-ranking-1.1561354

Draft picks can be a crap shoot at the best of times, and clearly these are not the best of times.

On top of that it also depends on the team’s staff. A team can’t draft good players if they don’t have good scouts to find them, and then those players may not develop properly without a great developmental system.

Good thing the draft has been going on for decades, and there is some data to help determine how much those picks are worth.

There’s a great paper written about the value of draft picks that gives odds that a pick in each round will play 200 games (https://myslu.stlawu.edu/~msch/sports/Schuckers_NHL_Draft.pdf)

Basically, a third round pick has about 15% chance of playing 200 NHL games, and a fifth round pick is around 8%, Michael Schukers writes. So Montreal gave up a 15% chance and an 8% chance of an NHL player for the guaranteed Eric Staal.

Now, enough about what the other guys got, what did Montreal get in Eric Staal.

He’s a proven winner, a member of the Triple Gold Club (Stanley Cup, World Cup and Olympic Gold Medallist). He’s a veteran centre, only 3 years removed from scoring 42 goals for Minnesota. To put that in perspective, Alex Galchenyuk’s 30 goal season as a member  of the Montreal Canadiens was 2 seasons before that.

Of course, this hasn’t been a banner year for Staal, 10 points in 32 games, but take that with a big grain of salt. Those were games on the Buffalo Sabres, possibly the worst team ever drafted, signed and traded together in the history of the NHL.

Is it strange to say that a deal for a veteran player on an expiring contract that Montreal probably won’t be able to afford to give a new contract to due to being up against the cap is a move for the future? Well, it seems like it is.

Because Staal isn’t entering a vacuum, he’s entering an extremely young Canadiens centre core that can desperately use his leadership.

The Canadiens have used four centres almost exclusively this year (except for Paul Byron in a scant few games). Those centres are Jesperi Kotkaniemi (20 years old and 148 games), Nick Suzuki (21 years old and 104 games), Jake Evans (24 years old and 44 games) and elder statesman Phillip Danault (28 years old and 372 games) (try to catch the sarcasm).

Eric Staal has played in 1,272 games. That is just under double the games that the rest of Canadiens’ centres combined (668 if you were wondering). That’s a huge boon for this young core to have a player like Staal to learn from.

Last year they had Nate Thompson. The perennial fourth-liner that has hung in the league since 2008 due mostly to his defensive guile and face-off acumen. He was a good leader to teach the youngsters the defensive side of the game, but Staal is a different beast entirely.

Eric Staal figures to be a big part of the Canadiens and their push and subsequent trip to the playoffs, when he enters the line-up. But even if Staal doesn’t score a goal (he will) or get a point (he will), this can only be seen as a positive for the development of this young promising centre core for years to come.