The Dallas Stars traded Trevor Daley and Ryan Garbutt for Patrick Sharp and prospect Stephen Johns. So, hold on.. The Stars traded one of their top-four defensemen?
*rolls sleeves up*
Jakub Kindl is a great player. No, really.
The blue means good, right? (courtesy of war-on-ice.com)
Okay, I’m done being funny. I’m not that funny, but still..
The Red Wings are floating around $500k above the cap ceiling right now. You could say that the inevitable LTIR of Pavel Datsyuk or Johan Franzen would alleviate them of this burden, but why bank on that? You could put a player like Joakim Andersson on waivers to create space, but it still leaves the club with a very thin margin of cap space. Could there be a possible trade on the horizon? Maybe.
There’s a few names the Red Wings could toss on the trading block. Brendan Smith, Teemu Pulkkinen, Tomas Jurco, and Darren Helm are all names that hold value. But what about defenseman Jakub Kindl? While nine out of ten Red Wings fans say he is bad and should be traded, I don’t think he’s that bad. In fact, I think he could actually be a very promising offensive defenseman in most NHL systems. Kindl has been a victim.. A victim of a system that hasn’t played him more than 70 games since being drafted 19th overall in 2005. He has a career high of 19 points, which was accomplished in the 2013-2014 season under head coach Mike Babcock. In 2014-2015 he boasted 13 points in 35 games, the same tally as Brendan Smith, who plays in a similar role.. In 45 less games. What’s up with that? Why did Brendan Smith see more time than Jakub Kindl?
Let’s be honest, both Smith and Kindl have issues in their own zone. To say that they are serviceable “two-way” defensemen is a stretch. But offense is always something that should be valued with any team. While Kindl’s numbers aren’t staggering by any means, I think that the fact that he’s a good-skating, offensively aggressive blue liner is something that any team would be willing to take a swing at in their bottom-four.
After Dallas traded Trevor Daley to the Chicago Blackhawks, they strike me as a team who needs to add NHL-caliber players on their backend. The Stars have a promising crop of young defensive prospects, but no one who has proven to be something special at the big level.
Listen, I’m not saying that Jakub Kindl is the kind of player who can change the Stars, but he would certainly be an upgrade to their team.
The Cost
If the Red Wings are going to trade Kindl, they are most likely going to need to eat a bit of salary.. But how much? I would be comfortable with retaining anywhere from $500k to $1 million. The Stars have about ~$7 million worth of cap space, so this isn’t out of the question in terms of dollars for the Dallas club. Even if the Red Wings acquired a later draft pick, say, 4th-7th overall, they could fix their cap overage without banking on players going to injured reserve.
I’m not saying the Red Wings HAVE to shop Kindl to Dallas.. I’m just saying that it’s a team that could be on the market for an upgrade. I know that with the newly-acquired Jeff Blashill running the bench, the Wings will certainly wonder if Blashill can revitalize what has been deemed a lackluster career for Jakub Kindl.
I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a “sell high” situation. It’s more of a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Remember when Ken Holland traded a 2015 2nd round pick for a damaged Erik Cole and a 3rd round pick in the same year? Alright, Mr. Nill.. We scratched your back, now how about scratching ours?
