Rental vs. Trade & Sign: Which strategy is better at the Trade Deadline?
With less than two months remaining until the NHL’s March 3 trade deadline, we’re bringing you one deadline-focused story each day at Daily Faceoff.
Today we’re going to focus on past Trade Deadline additions that were more than pure rentals. More specifically, we’re looking at Trade & Sign situations from the past 10 years, how each affected the return for the player, and whether the higher acquisition cost was worth it for the buyer team.
To be clear: we’re exploring situations where the player signed either the day of the trade or almost right afterward, more often than not right before they even played a game with their new team. It’s a bold commitment locking up a player before you have a chance to see if they fit in with your team’s players and structure, which is why you don’t see it all that often, especially because it might come at an additional price. With potential Trade & Sign scenarios playing out for top 2023 targets such as the Vancouver Canucks’ Bo Horvat and the San Jose Sharks’ Timo Meier, let’s look at recent examples from previous Trade Deadlines.
2023 Trade Deadline Countdown: 40 Days
Hampus Lindholm, Boston Bruins (acquired 2021)
Return: 2022 first-round pick (Nathan Gaucher), 2023 & 2024 second-round picks, Urho Vaakanainen, & John Moore (Kodie Curran also went to Boston)
Contract: Eight years, $6.5 million AAV, signed one day after trade
Value brought: 12.4 goals above replacement in 54 games
The most recent example of a trade and sign, Hampus Lindholm inked his current eight-year contract with a $6.5 million cap hit, and it was met with plenty of criticism at the time. Part of it was due to the belief that the Bruins would have been better off pursuing a center on the market than a defenseman, but detractors were also questioning whether Lindholm was the right guy to lock up. He had a history of being a reliable shutdown defenseman, but he hadn’t played at that level for several seasons at the time of the deal.
Well, that belief has definitely been proven wrong, at least right now. We’re not even an eighth through his new deal so there’s plenty of runway for it to go poorly, but he’s lived up to the contract and the cost to acquire him up to this point. He proved particularly valuable through the first month of the season when Charlie McAvoy was out of the lineup and Lindholm took the top defenseman role with ease when the Bruins were at their hottest. What’s incredible is that so far with the Bruins, he has a higher goals above replacement in 54 games as a Bruin than he did from the start of the 2018-19 season until he was traded in 2022, proving that a change of scenery and playing on a better team were all he needed.
Was it worth the extra price?: Yes, in more ways than one. While we don’t know what he would have gone for as a pure rental, it probably wouldn’t have been much different than the return for then-teammate Josh Manson, who went for a second and a prospect. Some of the three picks also probably are in the deal due to John Moore’s contract going the other way, so it’s safe to say Lindholm goes for a second and Vaakanainen, and maybe an additional pick. While we don’t know how this deal will age, right now it’s certainly been worth it, and with only a year or two left in the tank for the Bruins, right now it is all that matters. So, the extra first round pick for the contract, and losing a second to make the money work, makes sense when the Bruins are going all-in on these next few seasons.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau, New York Islanders (acquired 2020)
Return: 2020 first-round pick (Ridly Greig) & 2020 second-round pick (Roni Hirvonen)
Contract: Six years, $5 million AAV, signed day of trade
Value brought: 4.2 goals above replacement through 184 games
Much like Lindholm’s, Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s trade and sign was also met with plenty of skepticism, but that has been a bit more justifiable. In the 2019-20 season when Pageau was dealt from the Ottawa Senators to the Islanders, he had 24 goals while shooting a career-high 17.8 percent, so the player people were buying that season was not the one they were going to get long-term. So when Isles GM Lou Lamoriello not only gave up a first, second, and third round pick (the third was conditional and remained an Islanders pick), but immediately locked him into a six-year contract with a $5 million cap hit, many thought it would get ugly quick.
They were wrong to some extent. He played quite well in both the Islanders runs to the Eastern Conference Final in 2020 and 2021, with 11 goals and 24 points in 41 games and eight goals in the 2020 run. However, he’s scored just 42 goals and 94 points in the past three seasons, and his 5-on-5 play just hasn’t moved the needle all that much, and considering that the Islanders haven’t been nearly as competitive in recent seasons, they could use every edge they can get, so $5 million is a lot for someone who doesn’t hit 40 points or drive play.
Was it worth the extra price?: Quite simply, no. Pageau was a somewhat smart deadline addition in that he was on a hot streak that season, so why not capitalize on it for your playoff run, and then replace him in the offseason with someone more reliable on a year-by-year basis? As a rental he might have cost just the first-round pick, or maybe a first and a mid-range prospect. Instead, the Isles paid the extra price, and now they have another contract that’s a bit too heavy on a team that has far too many contracts like that.
Mark Stone, Vegas Golden Knights (acquired 2019)
Return: 2020 second-round pick (Egor Sokolov), Erik Brannstrom, & Oscar Lindberg (Tobias Lindberg also went to Vegas with Stone)
Contract: Eight years, $9.5 million AAV, signed 12 days after trade
Value brought: 56.9 goals above replacement through 218 games
The Mark Stone return was an interesting one, because usually when a team is selling off a player, especially one of Stone’s stature, the conversation always begins with a first-round pick. However, the centerpiece of the return for the talented two-way winger wasn’t the pick, it was Erik Brannstrom. A Vegas first-round pick. The defenseman had a high pedigree when the deal happened in the 2018-19 season, so it made sense for the Sens to go for a guy they wanted instead of the mystery box of a late first-round pick.
Unfortunately for the Sens, it didn’t pan out for them, as Brannstrom has yet to find his footing in the NHL, and at 23, he’s only got a couple more years before it’s less what he can become and just what he is. Stone’s tenure with Vegas hasn’t been perfect either, as he’s dealt with his fair share of injuries. But even if his current back problems shorten or threaten his career, the value he’s brought to the franchise as both a player and a leader, as well as the two final-four playoff runs that came with it, will already be well worth the cost of admission.
Was it worth the extra price?: It’s hard to say if this trade would have cost as much if it was a rental because this already feels like a steal. If anything, it should have been Brannstrom and a first-round pick if Stone was going to re-sign in Vegas, but the Senators also had their hands tied in the situation with Stone set to walk to unrestricted free agency at the end of the year. So yes, it was easily worth the price, especially because it’s an elite player. Those are the players you give up the sun and the moon for and worry about everything else later, so getting him at this cost was a no-brainer.
Nick Jensen, Washington Capitals (acquired 2019)
Return: 2020 second-round pick (Cross Hanas) & Madison Bowey (2019 fifth-round pick also went to Washington with Jensen, which was used to select Arseny Gritsyuk by the New Jersey Devils)
Contract: Four years, $2.5 million AAV, signed day of trade
Value brought: 35 goals above replacement through 264 games
Jensen was another player dealt at the 2018-19 deadline, and unlike Stone, Jensen wasn’t one that had a ton of headlines on him, but he was still a sleeper deadline add for whoever pursued him, and the Caps lucked out by nabbing him and locking him up to a four-year deal with a $2.5 million cap hit. While he didn’t have the eye-popping point totals that will usually drive up the value of a puck-moving defenseman, or the experience and pedigree that boosts the return on gritty defensive defensemen, he had some excellent underlying numbers in tough roles on some bad Detroit teams, so it was easy to see how he’d be an excellent addition in a lesser role on a better team like Washington.
And much like his tenure in Detroit, his time in Washington has gone under the radar, partially because he joined them right after the Caps won their Stanley Cup in 2018 and they have since been ousted in the first round in four straight seasons, but it’s also because he’s just quietly been an excellent defenseman there. Sometimes he’s in a second pair role, sometimes he’s the defensive anchor alongside John Carlson, but he’s done it well. That said, at 32, signing Jensen to another four-year contract might be playing with fire as his deal comes to an end this season.
Was it worth the extra price?: Jensen’s deal is another one for which I would give up those assets just for one playoff run with this kind of player, never mind that run and an additional four seasons. That said, I don’t think there was as much of a premium price for the contract, which goes to show a route some teams with a lack of tradeable assets can use to make smart trade & sign additions: finding affordable under-the-radar players like Jensen.
Alexandre Burrows, Ottawa Senators (acquired 2017)
Return: Jonathan Dahlen
Contract: Two years, $2.5 million AAV, signed one day after trade
Value brought: -1.7 goals above replacement
The Burrows trade and sign situation with the Senators in 2017 is almost in the same vein as Pageau’s with the Islanders. The return was probably a bit pricey anyways, but Burrows wasn’t a bad player to bring in to capitalize on the team’s playoff aspirations that year, and the fact that Burrows shot 20.69 percent to score six goals and 11 points in 20 games in the regular season helped build on that as the team went all the way to the Eastern Conference Final that year.
The issue with this move is locking in on the extension right away. Before Burrows had played a game, the Senators signed him to a two-year contract with a $2.5 million cap hit. That’s a risky move as is when you don’t know how he’ll gel with the team, but it’s even riskier when that deal is made for his age 36 and 37 seasons. Burrows was already on the decline with the Vancouver Canucks, so it just seemed like he wouldn’t amount to much for Ottawa, and that was exactly what happened, as he only made it through one season of that two-year deal before he was bought out. The fact that Dahlen didn’t amount to much of anything at the NHL level offsets the deal a bit, but there were still better ways the Sens could have capitalized on Erik Karlsson and Mark Stone’s prime years.
Was it worth the extra price?: To be honest, I don’t even think this deal was made with the intention of it being a trade and sign, at least from Vancouver’s perspective. I wouldn’t be shocked if they just sold him off as a rental thinking he wouldn’t be extended until after the playoffs at least, and the Sens just went for it right away. Considering that the masterminds at the helm when this happened were Jim Benning for the Canucks and Pierre Dorion while he was weighed down by Eugene Melnyk, it’s probably likely.
Even though Dahlen didn’t pan out, he was a fairly well regarded prospect at the time, so if he was the extra price with the Burrows extension factored in, it didn’t make sense to move that piece for a middle six forward on the decline in his late 30’s, especially just to lock him up for seasons where he’ll be even worse.
The Verdict
The trade & sign is much more hit-or-miss than you’d think. It really just depends on the type of player you’re bringing in. Sure, a player like Stone or Lindholm is worth it regardless since you get high-end value from them on the ice during your contending years, but even a lower key piece like Jensen might be worth it if you’re smart enough to know where to look. But one thing’s for sure: you have to know the difference between a good player (Stone, Lindholm, Jensen) and a player having a good year (Pageau, Burrows), because betting on the latter just isn’t worth it when you can pay a lower acquisition cost to rent them capitalize on their best season anyways.
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