Bjugstad to the Wild; Edmundson to the Habs

Big bodies are on the move.

In two separate trades, the Minnesota Wild and Montreal Canadiens made moves to add some size to their respective lineups.

The Minnesota Wild made a trade for a veteran centre with health issues.

The Montreal Canadiens sent a draft pick to Carolina so that they could negotiate a contract with a big defenseman of questionable quality.

Were these moves the best use of cap space heading into this offseason?

The Wild Get: C Nick Bjugstad

Bjugstad, 28, has had an up-and-down career, marked recently by injuries. He scored 24 goals in 2014-2015, his second full season, and tallied a career-high 49 points in 2017-2018, making the most of an opportunity to play on the wing with Aleksander Barkov.

Throughout his career, Bjugstad has been an average possession player with slightly better results when it comes to expected goals. He’s below average on faceoffs, 49.1% for his career (47.5% at 5-on-5) but, ultimately, a healthy Bjugstad probably fits the profile of a third-line center on a good team.

That health is something of a question, though. The 6-foot-6 forward had back surgery and played just 13 games in 2019-2020, after playing 64 games in 2018-2019. He has played more than 70 games once in the past five seasons.

In Minnesota, Bjugstad joins a team that already has Eric Staal, Luke Kunin and Joel Eriksson Ek down the middle of the ice which could mean that either Kunin or Bjugstad slides to the wing in order to stay in the top nine.

The Penguins are retaining half of Bjugstad’s salary cap hit, $2.05 million, which still means that the Wild must have some kind of expectation for Bjugstad to contribute.

The Penguins Get: A conditional seventh-round pick in 2021.

The conditional seventh-round pick will go to the Penguins if Bjugstad plays at least 70 games or scores at least 35 points. So there’s a pretty decent chance that the Wild will end up paying nothing to acquire Bjugstad and even if the pick does get transferred, a seventh-round pick typically has a little less than 10% chance of playing 100 games in the NHL.

So what do the Penguins get out of this deal? They get out from under half of Bjugstad’s final year on his contract. The cap hit was $4.1 million but the salary is $5.25 million, so there is not only a salary cap savings, but Pittsburgh does save a little in actual cash as well.

The real issue, though, is that the Penguins didn’t really have room for Bjugstad’s salary. According to Cap Friendly, the Penguins already have about $72.5 million committed to the salary cap for next season, with 19 players signed. They also have centre Jared McCann and goaltender Matt Murray as arbitration-eligible restricted free agents and, according to TSN’s Frank Seravalli, are looking at an internal cap of low-to-mid $70 million range.

Verdict: It’s a clear win for the Penguins because they found a way to get out from under half of Bjugstad’s cap hit and it didn’t cost them anything to do it.

Think of it this way: if Bjugstad was an unrestricted free agent this offseason, coming off back surgery and a season in which he played 13 games, would he be worth a contract for more than $2 million? It’s possible but given how tight the finances are supposed to be in the league this offseason, it’s conceivable that he wouldn’t command that much. And if teams are tightening their belts this summer, is taking on a salary dump of Nick Bjugstad really the best possible use of cap space?

The Wild LOVE bringing in players with Minnesota ties, whether they were born in Minnesota or played at the University of Minnesota and Bjugstad checks both of those boxes. But how much does that matter? If he had this same statistical profile but was from Cranbrook, British Columbia or Helsinki, Finland, would it still be worthwhile?

This isn’t to suggest that the trade is disastrous. If Bjugstad stays healthy, there is certainly a possibility that he could be a useful complementary scorer, capable of contributing 40-plus points. It’s more about the process and the analysis that it would cost the Wild anything (or even nothing) to take part of that contract off of Pittsburgh’s hands.

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The Canadiens Get: D Joel Edmundson

Edmundson, 27, is a 6-foot-4, 215-pound defenseman who produced a career-high 20 points (7 G, 13 A) in 68 games this season. He will be an unrestricted free agent in the offseason, so the Habs are paying for the right to negotiate with him before free agency begins on October 9.

Prior to last season, Edmundson had okay possession numbers while tending to start more of his shifts in the defensive zone. However, in his one season with Carolina, 2019-2020, Edmundson had the worst 5-on-5 shot and expected-goal ratios among Hurricanes defensemen.

Edmundson is big and can play a physical game but he’s not a mauler, either. Where does he fit on the Montreal blueline? The left side has Ben Chiarot, Brett Kulak, and Victor Mete with rookie Alexander Romanov challenging for a spot. On the right side, they have Shea Weber and Jeff Petry.

So maybe Edmundson can play on the third pair with Mete, with one of them sliding to the right side. If you’re thinking that this seems like an unusual price to pay to negotiate a free agent contract with a third-pair defenseman, we’re speaking the same language here.

Edmundson had a $3.1 million salary in 2019-2020 and presumably will want more than that as an unrestricted free agent.

Generally, I’m skeptical of teams dishing out long-term contracts to defensive defensemen, especially those that haven’t proven to be reliable shot suppressors. In this specific case, I have to reserve some judgment because the Canadiens have not yet signed Edmundson to a new contract but the direction this is heading would be a little troubling at the very least.

The one caveat that I should acknowledge is that I didn’t have especially high expectations for Ben Chiarot when the Canadiens signed him as a free agent last summer and he had a solid first season in Montreal. Could they work that magic again with Edmundson? Better hope so.

The Hurricanes Get: A fifth-round pick.

A fifth-round pick typically offers a little less than a 15% chance of playing 100 games in the NHL. It’s not an especially valuable pick and Montreal still has eight picks in the first four rounds, so they probably won’t miss the fifth-round pick that is going to Carolina. From Carolina’s perspective, why not take a pick for a player who is going to leave as a free agent anyway?

The Hurricanes had bolstered their defense this season, attempting to cover for injuries to Dougie Hamilton and Brett Pesce, so they were looking at three unrestricted free agents on the blueline – Edmundson, Sami Vatanen, and Trevor van Riemsdyk – and even if all three depart, there is a solid core in place.

If the Hurricanes enter next season with Hamilton, Pesce, Jaccob Slavin, Brady Skjei, Jake Gardiner, and Haydn Fleury on defense, they’re not likely to miss Edmundson.

Verdict: The Hurricanes get the win because they effectively got something for nothing. If Edmundson was going to leave as a free agent anyway, recouping a draft pick is still better than a kick in the teeth.

From the Montreal Canadiens’ perspective, the acquisition of Edmundson isn’t itself a problem. The issue is that this likely portends a contract offer to Edmundson that won’t be an ideal allocation of cap space.