New Jersey Devils: Assessing Trade History Of Top NHL Draft Picks
The New Jersey Devils are reportedly still looking at possibly trading the second-overall pick in the NHL Draft. How has that worked out the few times it happened in history?
The New Jersey Devils could do something unprecedented. The team could trade the second-overall pick in the NHL Draft after moving up in the lottery. This just doesn’t happen very often, and it’s incredibly rare now. Just one time in the past 10 years did a team who was set to pick in the top three not end up picking there. That was the San Jose Sharks losing their 2020 third-overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft as a result of the Erik Karlsson trade. The Ottawa Senators ended up picking Tim Stuetzle.
That trade actually happened well before the Sharks knew they were going to be very bad. They traded for Karlsson in the 2019 offseason, and it could go down as one of the worst in recent history. Now, the Sharks are one of the worst teams in the Pacific Division. Sure, Seattle was the worst, but a team with few young stars in the making, getting to just 77 points hurts immensely.
Trading a top pick has hurt teams when an unprotected pick turns into a top-five pick. However, how often has a team traded a top-five pick when they knew it was a top-five pick? It does happen. While it hasn’t happened in a long time, the last example of it happening seems like it’s right up the alley of what the Devils want to do.
Toronto Maple Leafs trade a first, second, and third-round pick to the New York Islanders for fifth overall.
This was a draft-day trade that doesn’t look so great now. However, the Maple Leafs really wanted Luke Schenn in 2008, and they gave up three picks to get him. They had the seventh-overall pick, so it wasn’t too far a drop for the New York Islanders. Schenn ended up being the wrong pick, especially since Erik Karlsson was still on the board.
This is obviously not a good example for our position here. The Devils aren’t looking to move down and build more draft pick. That likely makes the Devils current problem (too many assets cancelling each other out) even worse. They need NHL players. So, let’s find a trade where an NHL player went the other way.
Philadelphia Flyers trade Ruslan Fedotenko and two second-round picks to the Tampa Bay Lightning for fourth overall.
So, this trade is bad. This trade is really bad. The Tampa Bay Lightning made the bizarre move of trading the fourth-overall pick for a package surrounding Russian defenseman Ruslan Fedotenko. He had shown so flashes of being pretty good, and he was just 23 years old, but this is an undrafted guy who was playing over his head for the Flyers.
It seems like the trade came because of a call from head coach John Tortorella, who said he needed more NHL players on the roster. They had their core in Vinny Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis (who only played 53 games the year prior), and Brad Richards. The team needed another offensive piece to work around them.
However, this seems like a team that was desperate to find the perfect fit, and they paid handsomely for it. Fedotenko was not the right player for the situation. After the trade, scouts quit the organization according to The Hockey News. It feels like the wrong move overall.
On the other hand, the Lightning won the Stanley Cup two years later. The Flyers ended up taking Joni Pitkanen with the fourth-overall pick. He played just three seasons with the Flyers. Fedotenko played five seasons with the Lightning, and he won the 2004 Stanley Cup. He had 12 playoff goals during that run. Three of them were game winners. In the Lightning front office’s mind, that was enough to make the trade worth it.
Ottawa Senators trade Alexei Yashin to the New York Islanders for the second-overall pick, Bill Muckalt, and Zdeno Chara
So… this didn’t work out for the Islanders now did it? Considered one of the worst trades in the history of hockey, the Islanders traded for superstar forward Alexei Yashin after he sat out for a whole year. He did return for one more year with Ottawa, but it was clear he was out the door. He had back-to-back 40-goal seasons (despite having a missing season in between), and he was considered one of the best goal scorers in the NHL at the time. He was around 27 at the time, so he was smack dab in the middle of his prime.
This sounded like the right move. At the time, Zdeno Chara was a defensive defenseman who gave the Islanders a physical presence, but that was basically his role. He never scored more than two goals in a season with the Islanders. Then, the Senators unlocked his greatness. He scored 10 goals in his first season and then jumped to 16 goals in his third season.
The Senators also took Jason Spezza with their second-overall pick. He was one of the best players to ever play for the Sens. This was a huge loss for the Islanders, and this needs to be a learning experience for the Devils.
Meanwhile, Yashin’s output immediately dropped off. He was still really good for the first few seasons, but he never came close to 40 goals again. He only had one 30-goal season in an Islanders uniform, and he was out of the league in five seasons.
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When the team is looking to make a massive jump into contention, the star players that are available are usually available for a reason. The Devils are going superstar shopping, and it could end up like the Yashin trade pretty easily. Tom Fitzgerald needs to be careful because messing up this trade could make him the laughing stock of the league. However, if it works, it could be the catalyst to a future Stanley Cup win.