Saw an interesting question get raised today on twitter: would anyone here trade Rielly or Gardiner (would probably need to be Rielly) for Dougie Hamilton? The Flames currently have him, Brodie, Hamonic, and Stone (making $3.5mil) as right-handed defencemen. Giordano is their only signed NHL defenceman who is left handed. So there might be some shuffling around there to be done.
Hero charts, for those into that kind of thing:
Hamilton was drafted 9th overall in 2011. He has 4 years left on his contract at $5.75mil.
Rielly was drafted 5th overall in 2012. He has 5 years left on his contract at $5mil.
Our top-4 essentially goes from this:
Rielly-Zaitsev
Gardiner-Hainsey
to this:
Gardiner-Hamilton
Hainsey-Zaitsev
I think that it's somewhat a sideways move at worst. Hamilton's chart obviously is more flattering but there's also the fact that Rielly plays more minutes and probably tougher minutes. Although last season Hamilton did play mostly with Giordano so I'm guessing he was getting the tough assignments too.
In the short term, it makes out top-4 defence a little easier to upgrade since acquiring a left-handed defenceman to replace Hainsey in the new group will probably be easier than finding someone who can bump him out of the RD2 spot in the old group.
In the future, it possibly creates a log jam on the right side of Liljegren becomes the defenceman we hope he'll be, but in that case Zaitsev becomes a nice trade chip.
Hero charts, for those into that kind of thing:
Hamilton was drafted 9th overall in 2011. He has 4 years left on his contract at $5.75mil.
Rielly was drafted 5th overall in 2012. He has 5 years left on his contract at $5mil.
Our top-4 essentially goes from this:
Rielly-Zaitsev
Gardiner-Hainsey
to this:
Gardiner-Hamilton
Hainsey-Zaitsev
I think that it's somewhat a sideways move at worst. Hamilton's chart obviously is more flattering but there's also the fact that Rielly plays more minutes and probably tougher minutes. Although last season Hamilton did play mostly with Giordano so I'm guessing he was getting the tough assignments too.
In the short term, it makes out top-4 defence a little easier to upgrade since acquiring a left-handed defenceman to replace Hainsey in the new group will probably be easier than finding someone who can bump him out of the RD2 spot in the old group.
In the future, it possibly creates a log jam on the right side of Liljegren becomes the defenceman we hope he'll be, but in that case Zaitsev becomes a nice trade chip.