Will teams actually want to deal significant assets for Pierre-Luc Dubois?
Pierre-Luc Dubois reportedly submitted a trade request to the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday, creating a lot of chatter about where he might go and how much he might go for. The problem is, Dubois’ previous intentions of wanting to go to Montreal or wanting to test unrestricted free agency make it a tough sell for the Jets if they want to get a solid amount of assets, and a tough buy for any team looking to give up assets to get him long-term.
Tyler Yaremchuk and Mike McKenna talked on Daily Faceoff Live about the situation Dubois and the Jets find themselves in now in the wake of Dubois’ trade request.
Tyler Yaremchuk: I think Dubois’ kind of screwed the Jets, because all we hear is that he wants to go to Montreal. And regardless of if that’s true or not, him sitting here a year out from unrestricted free agency saying “I’m not signing here again”, them trying to get proper trade value for this guy is nearly impossible, because teams will sit there, specifically a team like Montreal I’d imagine and go “woah, you want a first and a prospect and all of this? We’re not competing next year, if we just wait 12 months, we’ll sign him for no assets in free agency.” I think Dubois’ really taking it to the Jets here, and honestly I don’t like it. I think it’s kind of an unnecessary shot at an organization that gave up a lot in Patrik Laine to bring you in.
Mike McKenna: Well, as a player he doesn’t care what they gave up to bring him in. He just wants what he wants. But this guy’s under 25 years old, and he’s already asked for a trade twice. He’s a flight risk. Why would you want that player on your roster? His play’s been spotty too. There’s times where he completely disappeared this year, and he is not beyond the second line center. For where he went in the draft, he should be a top-flight first line center. He showed it at times in Columbus, and he hasn’t reached that peak to stay there.
So, does he think he’s going to get more money? Is it just about playing where he wants to play? I appreciate that a player would like to dictate being somewhere they’re happy, but when you’re on the market like this, he doesn’t have any trade protection, Winnipeg can just go “You know what, screw you, we’re going to send you off wherever we want to,” if they can’t get much for him.
I don’t see that happening, because you want to get the most out of this trade that you can. But you’re going to want an extension in place if you trade for him, right? You don’t want to just give him a $6 million qualifying offer for assets that you give up and get one year out of it. I don’t know, he’s not worth Nazem Kadri money or term for me at $7 million. Is it just Montreal he wants to go to? Is that it? He better have a longer list of more than one team or three teams if he thinks that this move is going to be anything palatable for him.
And yeah, for Kevin Cheveldayoff, this is a rock and a hard place. I’m interested to see how he comes out of it. We thought Brad Treliving was in a terrible spot last year, and even though it doesn’t look great with Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar after the fact, that was a pretty good deal at the time.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, I think hindsight obviously changes that a bit, but it’s also year one of that trade, and we talked about it a bunch of times. With Dubois, I think Winnipeg’s going to be hard pressed to get good assets in this deal just because so many teams are going to say “we want to talk extension”, and if they go to them and say “okay, eight-year deal” and he says he says “no, I’m testing free agency next year”, why would you give up anything significant for him unless you’re a contender and you’re viewing him purely as a one-year rental, but I don’t even know if that’s worth the headache.
Mike McKenna: For an inconsistent player that’s a flight risk. That’s the perception and perception’s reality, so good luck everybody.
You can watch the full episode here…