Well, okay. Maybe that pick wasn't the focus of the trade that sent Eric Fehr home to Manitoba in time for the first NHL hockey in his home province in a decade. The fourth round pick is likely to fall somewhere around 105th in the upcoming draft, giving the Capitals a strong chance of adding a young player who will never play in the National Hockey League. The Jets also threw in a player who is reportedly getting a lot of penalty minutes in the East Coast Hockey League.
Eric Fehr, a former first round draft pick, has overcome multiple shoulder injuries to score key goals in helping the Hershey Bears win a Calder Cup and put up 46 goals in the NHL, seven of them game winners. He's also added five goals and one assist in twenty-six playoff games--admittedly not stellar, but not too shabby for a team that struggles with playoff scoring.
As a fan, this trade kind of hurts. When you look at the reviews in the newspapers, you just kind of get the feeling that the Caps are giving up on a formerly bright prospect who has struggled with injuries. In the same summer that the Caps gave up of former first round pick and six foot seven defenseman Joe Finley, this reads like another reminder that it takes a lot to make it in the NHL and you never know who is going to contribute until they get there and make a difference.
I don't totally buy it. The Caps could easily have kept Fehr and Poti on injured reserve and stayed under the salary cap. They could have added Mike Green to IR for about the first seven games and had enough cap room to trade for Jason Arnott again at the deadline. This trade happened primarily because the Jets are making a concerted effort to stockpile native Manitobans (sp?) and Fehr, while average in the NHL due to repeated shoulder problems, was unstoppable from his childhood in Winkler, Man through his junior hockey days in Brandon, Man.
The trade works for the Capitals because they've more than replaced Fehr's clutch playoff scoring on the right wing by signing Joel Ward and Troy Brouwer, and because the prospect Winnipeg threw in, while still only proven in the ECHL, is the type of player the Caps need, especially after letting Steve Pinizzotto walk to Vancouver.
Danick Paquette is tougher than nails. While capable of scoring a few goals on each special team in juniors, Paquette is a fearless fighter. For his first bout in professional hockey, he took on Joe Finley. HockeyFights.com doesn't list a winner for that bout, but given that the 6'7" giant lost his job in the Caps system to the 6'0" two-way forward, I think we can safely give the decision to Paquette.
I think we can also safely say that Paquette will get a real chance in the AHL with Hershey this year, and a chance to play with the Caps in the future. The description of paquette on Hockey's Future calls him the "a perfect example of a player that teams love to have on their own side, but hate to play against."
Is this a fair return for Fehr, who still could turn into a regular twenty goal scorer in the NHL if he can ever stay healthy? Not really, but if Fehr stays injured every year, it's an incredible return, and the Caps currently have a lot of guys who can play right wing more consistently than Fehr. Mike Knuble and Alexander Semin often take shifts on the right side. Brouwer and Ward are comfortable on the right.
Fourth line right wing Matt Hendricks has yet to register a point in the NHL playoffs but managed to squeak into the lineup for seven games in the 2011 postseason, compared to Fehr's five. Incidentally, Fehr and Hendricks have each played 19 playoff games for the Hershey Bears, and each scored eight goals in that span. Hendricks also added four assists, compared to Fehr's three. That doesn't really take away from Fehr's stardom in juniors, but it does make it easier to think that the Caps can recover from losing him.
In the end, you'd think the Caps could have gotten a better return for a once highly regarded prospect, who is likely to end up as a regular on the Jets second line, but that's not entirely the point. The point here is that they've done the classiest thing possible, in looking at their plans for Eric Fehr, realizing he wasn't going to be a major star in Washington soon, and letting him go home to play a larger role in front of a crowd that already loves him.
It's also a matter of planning ahead. Fehr could easily have played out two more years in Washington and then gone to Winnipeg as an unrestricted free agent, giving the Caps nothing in return. Jets GM Tim Cheveldayoff says it's a coincidence that he's added three Manitobans in two weeks, but it's both an effective and a predictable way of strengthening his franchise by picking up players who are going to bleed blue.
Just as Jeff Halpern came home to play for the Capitals again as soon as they made an offer, Fehr was likely to end up in a Jets uniform sooner or later. By addressing the situation head-on, the Caps have solved their salary cap situation and added one tough player to their system and a pick that they can easily trade for veteran help later this year. They've also helped shore up the stability of hockey in Winnipeg, which is good for the whole league.
No comments:
Post a Comment