Ottawa Senators: Making Sense of Awful Trade Proposals

The Trade: Ottawa acquires Cody Ceci (TOR) and Frederic Allard (NSH), Nashville acquires Martin Marincin (TOR), Toronto acquires Rocco Grimaldi (NSH) and a 2020 1st (NSH)

We’re picking on the Leafs again, and in fact the same user, because apparently they’re convinced that bad players are worth first rounders. This trade was designed to clear cap space as well as space for Toronto’s defence prospects in the way of Cody Ceci and Martin Marincin. Much like the Malgin trade, it severely overvalues the Toronto players.

Ottawa Senators

Ceci and Marincin are both borderline NHL defencemen yet somehow would fetch a first rounder as well as a quality forward in Rocco Grimaldi. That isn’t the only issue with this, as the Sens made it clear last offseason that they were intent on moving on from Cody Ceci and many fans would likely be horrified to see him return.

Fortunately, that won’t be the case as this trade has a third problem in that Cody Ceci is a pending UFA. This means the Leafs wouldn’t need to trade him to free up cap space and even if the Sens wanted him back there’d really be no reason to trade for his rights, given that he’s already familiar with Ottawa and likely wouldn’t be persuaded in either direction by a pitch from the franchise.

With that in mind, let’s eliminate Cody Ceci from the equation, and since we’re down a player we’ll knock Nashville out too and deal directly with the Leafs yet again. Marincin still makes sense in this scenario as he still has one year at $700K on his contract, meaning that while the minuscule salary likely wouldn’t provide much cap relief for the Leafs, it would clear up some blueline space for a young player, as this proposal suggests they would like to do.

While it wouldn’t be a cap dump because of the low salary, Toronto wouldn’t likely be interested in increasing their cap hit either, so it would likely have to be a draft pick or a prospect going the other way. Marincin could provide Ottawa with some help on the back-end but he’s not the type of player the team would likely want to give up a lot to acquire, so perhaps a fringe prospect such as JC Beaudin, Jakov Novak, or Viktor Lodin would do. If that’s not enough for the Leafs I would be more inclined to suggest giving up a 4th or 5th round pick instead of reaching higher up the prospect ranks.