Jackets Trade Deadline Wrap-Up
Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
The NHL was abuzz with trade rumors and news yesterday before the official trade deadline at 3PM EST. The Jackets were expected to be buyers and make some major moves, but that wasn’t what happened. Instead, the club looked more like a selling team, dealing Marian Gaborik to LA for right wing Matt Frattin and adding Nick Schultz on defense from Edmonton for a fifth round draft pick.
Was trading Gaborik the right idea? To get a better idea of how Matt Frattin has been playing this season, here are his stats compared with Gaborik and other CBJ players:
GP |
Goals
Assists
Points
+/-
PIM
Matt Frattin
40
2
4
6
-6
11
Marian Gaborik
22
6
8
14
0
6
31
2
7
9
11
21
44
3
8
11
-4
21
(For comparison I chose to include the Jackets players on the active roster that have the best and worst +/- on the team this season.)
: Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports
As per the table above, Gaborik had over twice as many points as Frattin in half the games this season, so on the stat sheet the trade doesn’t make much sense. The main reason for the trade seems to be Gaborik’s injuries. It is likely that the team management saw Gaborik as an older, injury-prone player and traded him for a younger player that might be able to be on the ice more often. Gaborik is 32 and Frattin is 26, so the trade puts Columbus, already one of the youngest teams in the league, even lower in the average age rankings. The second part of the trade was draft picks. Jarmo seems to be fond of draft picks, and getting two of them for Gaborik must have been a pretty good deal.
The other trade the Jackets made yesterday was giving up a fifth-round draft pick to Edmonton for defenseman Nick Schultz. Since they got two picks from the Gaborik trade, giving up a fifth-round pick for some much-needed depth on the blue line was likely a good move. Here are Nick Schultz’s stats this season in comparison to current Jackets players:
GP |
Goals
Assists
Points
+/-
PIM
Nick Schultz
40
0
4
4
-11
24
55
5
32
37
-1
47
31
1
3
4
4
33
(For comparison, I chose the defensemen with the most and least points on the Jackets roster this season.)
So in terms of offensive play, Schultz doesn’t compare to the Jackets’ top defensemen in James Wisniewski and Jack Johnson (25 points), but he could add some depth that the Jackets really need in the short-term with Fedor Tyutin and Ryan Murray out with injuries.
It remains to be seen if either Frattin or Schultz will join the Jackets in Chicago tonight, but if so we’ll get to see how they play against one of the better teams in the league, and an old rival of Columbus.