Is it time to trade the Sedins? According to my most recent Twitter poll, which had 629 respondents, they're the long-time franchise player(s) that it makes the most sense to move.  I don't deny that the Canucks should be in rebuild mode, and it makes sense to trade the Sedins before their contracts expire at the end of the year. The problem with trading the Sedins is that you pretty much have to move them as a package. Since they carry a combined cap hit of $14.0 million. According to Cap Friendly, only New Jersey, Carolina, and Arizona have that much cap space. There's little chance that either of these three teams will be competitive enough to rent the Sedins down the stretch. Of course, there is the possibility that Vancouver can eat a high-priced contract in return. Let's re-visit this at the trade deadline, and see what's what. In other news, the Jets extended Paul Maurice, which is highly unusual for a league where coaches are given very little time to prove themselves, and are often dismissed far too quickly. There's no question that Maurice is a highly experience coached, but he has had success just twice in his long career, reaching the Stanley Cup Final with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2001-02, and reaching the third round in his second tour of duty with that team, in 2008-09. Beyond that, his long NHL coaching career has been relatively free of achievement, whether basing that on subjective opinion, or on my coaching metrics. The Jets are hardly alone in their gambles behind the bench. Colin Cudmore (@CudmoreColin) put together the following chart of which teams have made the greatest commitment to their head coach, in terms of seasons. The biggest surprises are Vancouver and Arizona, who boldly invested four seasons in coaches with very limited experience.  I suppose we haven't mastered the statistical analysis of coaching, but even the primitive stats we do have raises serious doubts about going off the board, as fashionable as it may be. And, even if teams do want to go off the board, I'm surprised that Philadelphia is the only team that went to the NCAA for address their coaching needs. |
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