Willis: Oilers fleeced Flames in Smid trade

[sureLoss]

http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/201...ladislav-smid/

It wasn’t a popular trade when it was made. Superficially, Ladislav Smid was a top-four defenceman who injected some necessary size, toughness and defensive ability on the back end. The players coming back were marginal prospects with some positive points (Roman Horak’s playing nicely in the KHL these days, Laurent Brossoit has shown flashes in the ECHL) but nothing worth moving a quality player from a position of strength.

That’s how I saw it at the time. I was wrong, not because the prospects were anything special, but because Smid really wasn’t.

Smid started showing that immediately upon his arrival with the Flames. It’s incredible to look at how his partners fared with and without him in 2013-14:

[MrMastodonFarm]

Larf.

Pretty basic Oiler logic at work here. Look at one set of numbers, ignore every other aspect of the trade or issue, then declare it a win for the Oilers.

[devo22]

Horak bolted to the KHL as soon as he had the chance and it takes some serious kool-aid if you have to defend Brossoit by saying he "has shown flashes in the ECHL". You can hardly call that fleecing.

Edmonton journalists are no good.

[saillias]

Provocative title, but as I expected just an excuse to make a boring article about possession numbers.

[topfiverecords]

Different % of what with or without Smid? With Smid the Flames defensemen drank between 3.0 and 14.1 less Gatorade?

Very informative article. It has about as much detail as the oilers coaches strategy book.

[Nufy]

What a crock...

[Anduril]

I have no idea what these percentages are referring to.

Given how Oilers basically gave Smid away only to cobble together Fayne (3.625Mx4),Ference (3.25Mx3), and Nikitin (4.5Mx2), I don't see how they could be 'interested' in seeing how we deal with our 15M cap space versus their 4M.


Really, no good at all.

[FlamesAddiction]

It all depends on how Brossoit turns out. I doubt Horak ever returns to play for the Oilers.

Brossoit might become an NHL goalie still, but as of now they have two players that are not playing for them. Smid on the other hand is a serviceable NHL veteran.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by devo22

Horak bolted to the KHL as soon as he had the chance and it takes some serious kool-aid if you have to defend Brossoit by saying he "has shown flashes in the ECHL". You can hardly call that fleecing.

Edmonton journalists are no good.

Yeah, I fail to see how it's a fleecing when both the prospects the Oilers got won't play another minute in the NHL moving forward. I think the Flames were expecting more out of Smid, but it's hard for any trade to be a fleecing when you don't receive anything of value in return.

[sureLoss]

Percentages are most likely ES corsi

[saillias]

Oiltown naively believes that corsi(?) is the be-all end all, to such an extent that the stat itself is unquestionable. You just show the possession numbers, and the truth is self-evident.

[Ozy_Flame]

Im pretty sure the fact that we walked away from that trade with an NHL quality player and neither of their guys are close to permanent NHL duty pretty much shows that we won the trade.

[trumpethead]

Can somebody help me out. What the hell are those charts telling us?? What does the minutes column mean? am I getting stupider just by reading an Edmonton Journal online column?

[Flash Walken]

Hack Journalism at it's finest.

June 2013:

The Oilers aren’t going to throw away a player like Smid – despite his warts moving the puck, he has a great deal of value as a defenceman. He’s big, tough, plays an honest physical game and defends rather well. He has at times been quite good in a top-four role – notably towards the end of 2011-12 when he and Jeff Petry held their own as a top pairing for a significant stretch.

But the Oilers didn’t throw away Eric Brewer, either. They traded him and some spare pieces to St. Louis in exchange for Chris Pronger when that elite defenceman became available. It was, without question, the strongest move of Kevin Lowe’s managerial career, and one that worked out rather well for the Oilers.

If Edmonton finds themselves in a situation where they can add a legitimate top-pairing guy, Smid makes a lot of sense as a potential trade candidate – because he’s a good defenceman on a value contract in the prime of his career whose skillset isn’t a perfect marriage to the espoused philosophy of the new general manager.

EXPECTATION

None of this means that the Oilers are on the verge of trading Ladislav Smid, or even that Smid won’t spend the rest of his contract in Edmonton. He is a good player on a good contract; generally those are the kind of pieces a team likes to keep around. Additionally, it would make no sense to trade him except in a very specific scenario where the Oilers had the opportunity to trade a package built around Smid for a superior defenceman; they don’t have the defensive depth to move Smid out without replacing him at the same time or very, very shortly thereafter.

All it means is that Smid’s name should be written in pencil, rather than pen, on long-term projections.

April 2013:

MAKE NO MISTAKE: THIS IS A HUGE COUP FOR THE #OILERS. SMID WAS THE ONLY PROVEN TOP-4 ‘D’ UNDER THE AGE OF 32 ON THE UFA MARKET THIS SUMMER.

— JONATHAN WILLIS (@JONATHANWILLIS) APRIL 1, 2013

SMID WAS GOING TO GET PAID. HE TOOK A HOMETOWN DISCOUNT HERE, AND THE #OILERS GOT A PLAYER THEY NEEDED TO KEEP AT A VERY GOOD PRICE.

— JONATHAN WILLIS (@JONATHANWILLIS) APRIL 1, 2013

Tell us again about your insight into the player that is Ladislav Smid, Jonathan.

[Ashasx]

Smid isn't more than an average bottom pairing defenceman, but how can you ignore what you got in return for him?

Yeah, we got fleeced, but apparently we gave up nothing?

[drewtastic]

So...

"Fleecing" in a hockey trade now means "getting a less-poor return than the team you traded with"...?

[burn_this_city]

Serviceable defensemen for magic beans is a good trade?

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Well, if he really wants a valid measure of how the Oilers fared in the trade, he would show those with/without Smid data for the Oiler defensemen of the time.

At best, his data show that perhaps the Flames brought in a defenseman that hurt their team. It does nothing to show whether or not Smid leaving improved the Oilers.

I hate it when people don't understand what their data imply.

[Ozy_Flame]

Edmonton Oilers;
Rays of sun on Rexall Place;
Edmonton Oilers.

[Enoch Root]

Just curious how the possession numbers of the players that they acquired look? Oh they didn't acquire any actual players? So no bad possession numbers then?

Win for the Oilers!