New York Islanders Inactivity At Trade Deadline Due to Crazy Market

The trade market is just too high for teams like the New York Islanders to dip their toes in early and address their needs.

We’re just days away (18 specifically) from the 2018 NHL trade deadline. And the New York Islanders and the rest of the league have yet to engage in any trades.

Generally, we start seeing activity months before the deadline forces teams to make move before the playoffs. So far a ton of backup goalies have switched sides.

What’s the deal with the trade deadline this year? (Said in my very best Jerry Seinfeld impression). Specifically, what’s the deal with the New York Islanders and the trade deadline? They have needs that need to be addressed, now’s the time to do it. So why the wait?

My thought is that the market is just way, way out of line when it comes to the acquisition “price”.

Things Nobody Was Ever Going To Want

As part of my morning download of information across the internet, I head over to The Ringer. I don’t care much for basketball nor football, but I consume the heck out of what they put up. And this morning it was a piece by Shea Serrano that caught my attention.

In it, he details some trade deadline rumors and how absurd, or not some of these rumors are. In talking about the Atlanta Hawks Serrano describes what he feels is an apt analogy of the Hawks fire sale in his kid’s yard sale:

They [his kids] cobbled together a bunch of old clothes that they no longer wore, found some old and broken toys that they’d trashed, and then scribbled together a few pictures that they were planning to sell as “art.” They gathered it all onto the kitchen table and then began pricing everything at unreasonable rates, and as I watched I smiled a lot and laughed to myself. The stuff that they’d put together was just a bunch of things that nobody was ever going to want. It was really bad. (My favorite thing was they just started putting [stuff] in Ziploc bags and saying it was for sale. One bag had some old Play-Doh in it. It was $10. A different bag had JUST ANOTHER BAG IN IT, and they were charging $15 for that one, if you can even believe that.) It was a big-time mess. The whole thing.

This PERFECTLY summarizes the NHL trade market going into the trade deadline. A bunch of kids putting arbitrarily high prices on their assets that are clearly not worth anything. I blame the Ottawa Senators and Joe Sakic.

The return Sakic got for Duchene has completely skewed the market. Now every team in the league is looking to cash in and get a King’s ransom for a jester.

Look the New York Rangers have apparently put a price of a top prospect, a first-round pick and another pick or prospect for Rick Nash. Rick Nash! A 33-year-old, with a $7.8 million cap hit through this season on pace for a 40 point season. That’s Brock Nelson type production for just over three times the cap hit.

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No To Rentals

If it’s going to take three pieces to acquire an overpaid rental player that can contribute bottom six production, then I’m with Garth. (I shivered as the words went from my mind to the computer). Don’t move the assets for an inferior return that’s likely gone in four months.

The trade market in the NHL is too high. Teams are asking exorbitant returns for players that aren’t worth half of their asking prices. The New York Islanders shouldn’t be selling their future for the present.

It’s not to say they don’t need to make a trade. And It’s not to say that using their first round picks should be off the table. Use em! But use them to bring in quality that’s going to stay with the organization. A quality player with term left on his deal. Preferably a team friendly deal.

I keep using the example of Tyson Barrie from Colorado. (For a good reason). He’s young at 26-years-old, he’s got great skills, he fits the Islanders needs right now and in the few years to come, and he’s got three years left at $5.5 million each. Remember, Calvin de Haan was asking for $5 million in his arbitration case this summer.

Next: Can These Players Keep Up Their Production?

That’s the type of deal that the New York Islanders can sacrifice a first-round pick to. That’s the kind of deal the Islanders can mortgage some of their future for because they’re getting back a player that would immediately form part of their present and future plans.