I guess that the awaited REBUILD has now started. Kent Hughes has made his first BIG MOVE! He has traded Brandon Baddock to the Minnesota Wild for the goalie Andrew Hammond. He has sent Tyler Toffoli to the beautiful city of Calgary in exchange for a bunch of stuff that we are going to figure out later.
When Jeff Gorton was hired by the Canadiens, Geoff Molson (Montreal Canadiens’ CEO and co-owner) said he wanted a fresh start for his team… and what is better than starting a fresh start by hiring the Face of Rebuilding in the NHL. I am calling him the Face of Rebuilding because he changed the game when he sent a letter to New York Rangers fans announcing a “rebuild”. So since Marc Bergevin got fired, the team gave us a few clues that they were going to rebuild without saying it explicitly. And yesterday we finally got the first of a few moves where the Montréal Canadiens will trade a few veterans for futures.
This is the trade with all the details you need to know : The Calgary Flames are getting Tyler Toffoli and everything nice that comes with him : his contract, his wonderful family, his dog, etc. The Canadiens are retaining nothing. On the other way, Kent Hughes is getting a 2022 1st round pick that becomes a 2023 1st round pick if the original pick is top-10, Emil Heineman (he is basically a euro prospect no one really knows about), Tyler Pitlick (yes, he is Rem and Rhett’s older brother), and a 2023 5th round pick. Since everyone really like comparables, I have done the job for you and I found 2 trades that look a little bit like the Toffoli trade. The only major differences is that Kevin Hayes are actually +2-3 years younger than Toffoli when their trades happen, and most importantly, they are RENTALS (pending free agents) while today’s Toffoli still has 2.5 seasons left on a really cap friendly [lol] contract. If you are super picky, you can also tell me that Kevin Hayes plays center while Toffoli plays on the wing.
So, who is Tyler Toffoli?
My goal is to write it about from the Canadiens bias perspective, so I will describe what the Canadiens are giving up and I won’t attempt to predict the fit on the Flames, sorry Flames fans.
The player leaving the Canadiens is a really good hockey player. In his 111 games with the Canadiens, he was reliable a top-6 winger getting time on the main power play unit and he was also one of the regular players killing penalties. If you believe in hockey nerds mathematical models, you will be pleased to know that most of the models suggest that Tyler Toffoli had positive impacts at both ends of the ice during his time as a Hab’. Here is Toffoli’s career SPAR chart :
Small Hockey Analytics course here to understand WAR/GAR/SPAR. WAR means Wins Above Replacement. GAR means Goals Above Replacement. SPAR means Standing Points Above Replacement. What and why? Imagine a beautiful utopia where we could summarize a player’s TOTAL (offense/defense at even strength, on PP, on PK, his penalty differential) contribution to a team in ONE NUMBER… this is basically what WAR/GAR/SPAR attempt to do. “Replacement level” is basically the level of a player not bad, but not good. Above replacement level, the model suggests the players are contributing positively to their teams (at different levels), in the negative, the model suggest the players are contributing negatively to their hockey team. Models use an INCREDIBLE AMOUNT of data and complicated mathematical things (like ridge regression) to come up with the number. If you have more questions or things need to be corrected, feel free to send me a message privately please (don’t embarrass me lol).
Toffoli leaves the Canadiens a statistical goat. He was 2nd best forward of the team in WAR this season. Since he joined the team, he is the leader in goals, expected goals, shot attempts, points and power play goals. So, without surprise the Canadiens are now a worse team and the Flames are a way better team than they were before the trade.
There is now a lot of available time on ice (EV, PP, SH) for some winger who wants to take the opportunity to showcase his talents (Cole Caufield, Jesse Ylönen, please see this).
What about the package coming to Montreal?
The Flames putting a protection on the pick is a little bit funny, but it costs nothing to be extra safe. If everything is normal, the Canadiens are getting a 1st round pick that should end up being between #16 and #32. How can we evaluate a draft pick and how much my team’s draft picks are worth? Hockey nerds have attempted a bunch of mathematical stuff over the years and they have roughly ended up with the same conclusion : it should generally look like the graph below.
So I have roughly highlighted the part where the Flames pick should end up.
Wow, it looks like a logarithmic graph. The problem with a “first round pick” is that the difference of value between the first and last pick of the round is immense compared to the other rounds where the lost value is marginal. The difference of estimated value between if the Flames lose in the 1st round of if they win the Stanley Cup is almost as big as the différence between the 45th pick of the draft and the last pick of the Draft according to the model shown above. So, it’s hard to evaluate the trade right now for the Canadiens considering that there is so much value that can change in the main asset they got back for Toffoli (a tangible asset with a sort of really good fixed value).
The 2nd thing Hughes got for 73 is a prospect no Habs fan knew about before yesterday. Emil Heineman is a 20 years old Swedish winger playing in the SHL. I do not know him and only a few people do actually know him. The bad thing is that, usually, when you don’t know about a prospect, he is likely not a future star. The good thing about it is that his youtube videos highlights look fun… and that’s it. To know about a prospect, there is a lot of analysis to do more than watching his goals on Youtube and say that he’s the next Lehkonen/Anderson/Draisaitl. In terms of actual analysis, comparables are usually useless but I get why the fan is asking comparables (it makes the whole thing exciting to imagine that a prospect will turn out great like the star he’s compared to). From what we can read everywhere, he is a winger who can hit and “shoot”. I am a little worried that his 25% shooting percentage does not translate to the NHL, but he is still young and he still has the time to improve in peace before we start make unrealistic expectations for him. According to an insider, MTL is getting a prospect that they really like. Some fair expectations for him is that if he becomes a regular NHLer, he might be a bottom-sixer. I would not put my money on him being a top-6 winger in the NHL in 5 years. Last thing, you can read everything about him, you can be excited, but don’t put too much importance into what is said about him until he actually comes close to the NHL (it is how I approach prospect stuff, take my advice if you like it).
Montréal also got Tyler Pitlick in the trade. Aside of making the whole family happy, the addition of a 3rd Pitlick does not improve the team’s chance of winning. He is a career depth player who had good defensive and finishing numbers during his career in the NHL.
We have hope that some younger players take Toffoli’s PP and EV’s minutes, but the new Tyler in town should take care of the former Tyler’s PK minutes. Tyler Pitlick is an NHL body who makes a significant amount of money (1.75 millions) for they way he playing (bad). He is looking for an opportunity to rebound after 1.5 consecutive difficult seasons. He is a physical serviceable depth player.
Finally, Montréal got a 5th round pick in the 2023 draft (good draft apparently… but we don’t care because only the first few picks are loaded with potential franchise level talents).
Final words
Calgary did what they had to do. Montreal also did what they had to do. Winning is not the priority right now for the team. Calgary is winning the trade today. If they can manage to get some good 2.5 years of Toffoli, they will win the trade. Montréal will win the trade (when I’m talking about winning, it’s in term of MTL with the trade VS MTL without the trade) if they are able to turn the futures they got (picks, prospect) into some real tangible value to the team moving forward, but we might not know about that before like 2026. I think that Hughes has accepted one of the best offers he got for Toffoli, but I am surprised he didn’t get more. Toffoli is an efficient 30yo top-6 winger on a really nice deal… I feel it is the kind of situation where the team trading the player might have more leverage over a trade than the teams trying to acquiring him… but I am not a GM so I can probably stop here. In conclusion, I sort of like the trade for Montréal in terms of what it means for Chiarot, Lehkonen, Hoffman, etc., but I am quite disappointed that they did not get something with more potential value than what they got.
Good read as usual, my opinion on the trade is pretty similar.
Both teams did what they have to do and the trade is *fair*, but I’m a bit disappointed that the Habs didn’t get slightly more in return for a very attractive asset in Toffoli.
Nevertheless, I’m just happy we are finally doing the right thing and selling off our assets (unlike M*rc Berg*vin, who got zero value out of Danault and Tatar and proceeded to trade a first for a glorified 3C)