On Thursday’s episode of "Daily Faceoff Live," Frank Seravalli and Steven Ellis discussed which trade from the offseason could be seen as the best deal of the summer.
Frank Seravalli: I saw a tweet on social media saying that the John Marino trade is going to end up being one of the most lopsided deals of the summer. I was thinking, that’s really interesting, Marino has been playing really well for the New Jersey Devils who have railed off 10 straight wins, their third-best run in franchise history and he’s obviously an efficient puck mover, on a reasonable contract, he’s a big contributor to your team. Ty Smith is in the minors, so I understand where they are coming from but Steven I wanted to just take a look back now that we are six weeks into the season. What trade really standouts for you in terms of being a very impactful one that ended up being a really good deal?
Steven Ellis: I’m going to stick with the New Jersey Devils and I’m going to go with when they acquired Vitek Vanecek from the Washington Capitals. Part of it is for Vanecek and part of it is for who else they got. Which was the second-round pick of Seamus Casey, who right now is one of the best players in the NCAA. He’s having a fantastic season and I don’t think anyone kind of expected him to be this good as a freshman. Vanecek has been winning games and his analytical stats might not be the best but he’s winning games and that’s all you can ask for from a goalie. He’s got a shutout, he’s a big reason why this team is doing as well as they currently are. If you look at last year, they had about 33 goalies in net and none of them could figure things out, he’s been solid and been exactly what they needed. The fact is, Blackwood has also played well in his short span and so has Akira Schmid. But I think that one of the biggest issues last year was goaltending and finding consistency, they finally got it and they didn’t have to give up much to make that happen.
Frank Seravalli: So, what you’re saying is, it’s the summer of Tom Fitzgerald. We were saying it was the summer of the Sens and in this case, two really good moves by the Devils that have certainly put them in a position to be a playoff lock but people are already wondering if this team could potentially be a little bit more than that. But for me, the trade that has been super impactful, I would have to say it’s Oliver Bjorkstrand going from Columbus to Seattle. It’s not just how Bjorkstrand has helped Seattle, the three B’s we’ve been talking about them for a while in Bjorkstrand, Burakovsky, and Beniers have really changed the look of this Kraken team and made them way more competitive and tougher to play against. It’s also about the structure that has been lost in the Columbus Blue Jackets. You take a piece like that, that’s a really complete conciseness player and take him out of your lineup. Now they seem to be lacking that structure and he was one of those guys that seem like everything is crumpled around him and a guy that has a massive term on his contract at a reasonable number versus someone who’s generally a 50-point scorer and they didn’t have to give up a lot to get him in third and fourth-round picks. I think that was one of the big steals of the summer as the Kraken took advantage of a cap causality with the Blue Jackets.
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