Ottawa Senators: Making Sense of Awful Trade Proposals

The trade: Ottawa acquires Denis Malgin from Toronto for a 2020 1st (OTT)

This is a perfect example of the amount of dissonance between the proposals and reality. At 23-years old, Malgin has proven to be a dependable bottom six options. Scoring a career high 11 goals with Florida in 2017-18 and settling in as part of Toronto’s rotating cast of fourth liners after being acquired by the Leafs this February. Apparently, that makes him worthy of a third overall pick in a draft oozing with future top-end talent.

But while the trade is laughably one-sided, the idea makes sense. The Leafs have lots of young forwards and Ottawa has lots of high draft picks. If Toronto was looking to unload some of them due to the impending flat cap and wanted to still get something close to market value, Ottawa would be a team that might be willing to part with a valuable pick due to their current excess.

While Malgin is a pending RFA and would likely get a small raise, his current $750K cap hit isn’t enough to cause the Leafs to panic, but at $3.2 million, forward Kasperi Kapanen might be. Of course, even when making the clear upgrade from Malgin to Kapanen, the 3rd overall pick in this year’s draft is still way too much, as is the 5th pick. But what about Ottawa’s third 1st rounder from the Islanders?

The Islanders pick could land anywhere from 13th to 31st (or 1st but in that case New York would almost certainly elect to keep the pick and hand Ottawa their 2021 1st rounder). If the Islanders fail to win their qualifying round or bow out of the playoffs early and the pick winds up in the top-20, that may still be too much. If the Islanders go on an extended run, however, and the pick falls to the mid twenties, Ottawa could be wise to flip it to their provincial rivals in exchange for a young top-six forward.

If Ottawa intends to hold onto the Islanders pick, they still have four second rounders and six picks in the last five rounds to work with, so some combination of those could entice the Leafs to make Kapanen a cap casualty.