The Mika Zibanejad Trade
On July 18th, 2016, Pierre Dorion would complete his first transaction as General Manager of the Ottawa Senators, and it would prove to be quite a doozy. He would agree to send young centerman Mika Zibanejad and a 2018 Second Round pick (which turned out to be Jonathan Berggren) to the New York Rangers in exchange for Derick Brassard and a 7th round pick in the 2018 draft (which turned out to be Luke Loheit). At the time this trade had been made, Zibanejad had not yet established himself as a star centerman in the NHL. He was 24 at the time and was struggling to find consistency.
Dorion would decide to mortgage the youth in order to acquire a more proven centerman in Brassard in an attempt to solidify the center ice position for the Senators. In the short term, this worked. Brassard would appear in 81 games for the Senators and score 15 goals and 25 assists for 81 points while Zibanejad would score 14 goals and 23 assists for 37 points… in 56 games. Zibanejad would miss quite a lot of time due to injury, while Brassard would help lead the Senators to the Eastern Conference final that year (ironically enough both teams met in the second round, and Ottawa would be victorious). I say the Senators would meet their intentions in year one of the trade due to their deep playoff run that year.
However, from that year forth, Zibanejad would establish himself as a star in the NHL and regularly score 30 or more goals, while Brassard would serve as a serviceable middle-six center for numerous teams as he bounced around the league. Let me clarify this by saying I absolutely adore Brassard and he will go down as one of my favorite players to suit up for the Senators, it’s just unfortunate that the price to acquire him was so steep.
After Ottawa’s free-fall, Brassard would be traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Filip Gustavsson, a 2018 first-round pick, Ian Cole, and a 2019 Third round pick. Gustavsson would struggle in Ottawa and later be traded for Cam Talbot, the first-round pick turned out to be Jacob Bernard-Docker, Ian Cole was immediately flipped, and that third in 2019 would turn out to be traded a couple more times, and lead to the Carolina Hurricanes selecting Anttoni Honka.
Essentially, the Ottawa Senators turned Mika Zibanejad into Cam Talbot and Jacob Bernard-Docker. While JBD shows potential, he has not established himself as a full-time NHLer at this point.