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TSN reported Saturday afternoon that Dany Heatley had been shipped off, along with a 5th round pick, to the Bay Area in exchange for Jonathan Cheechoo, Milan Michalek and a 2nd round draft pick. Heatley, who requested a trade from an organization for the second time in his career, though under different circumstances, was thrilled to be traded to a team he perceives as having a legitimate chance at winning the Stanley Cup.
''I'm excited obviously, I'm excited to be a Shark, I want to thank everyone in Ottawa, the organization, the fans, and the city. I had a great four years here (and) I'm happy to move on.''
Ottawa GM Bryan Murray appears to be relieved that the Heatley chapter for the Senators franchise has finally come to an end, while Sharks GM Doug Wilson seems ecstatic to have added Heatley's tremendous talents. At the end of the day though, can we say that the deal was worth it for both sides? Well, that's a bit of a different story. The Senators are rightfully seen as team a few years away from relevancy, but the preception of San Jose might be significantly off. VUKOTA didn't see the Sharks as a big Stanley Cup threat before this trade, nor did it see San Jose as a top team in the Western Conference or even in the Pacific Division. In the end, even with the former disgruntled Senator now in San Jose, the Sharks might not be a much better team than they were Saturday morning.
Let's take a look at Dany Heatley's career over the last decade up until this past season:
Legend:
OGVT: Offensive GVT
DGVT: Defensive GVT
SGVT: Shootout GVT
GVT: Goals Versus Threshold
Dany Heatley Career Numbers
Team(s) P Season Rank GP OGVT DGVT SGVT GVT
Atlanta Thrashers F 01_02 131 82 10.1 0.1 0.0 10.2
Atlanta Thrashers F 02_03 18 77 20.4 2.3 0.0 22.7
Atlanta Thrashers F 03_04 339 31 4.3 0.2 0.0 4.5
Ottawa Senators F 05_06 14 82 20.2 4.1 -0.5 23.8
Ottawa Senators F 06_07 11 82 21.8 3.2 -0.3 24.7
Ottawa Senators F 07_08 25 71 16.6 4.5 -1.2 19.9
Ottawa Senators F 08_09 68 82 11.7 3.3 -1.1 13.0
Total F 01_09 86.5 507 105.1 17.7 -3.1 119.8
The 2nd overall selection in 2000 had his first major down year in 2008-09 when he didn't produce nearly as much offensively as he had in previous seasons. While 2007-08 and 2003-04 were down years, this was in large part due to a series of injuries as opposed to declining skills. Based on his track record over the past seven years, his numbers should take a slight downturn, considering that his peak years are likely through and he's already approaching the 30 years of age mark.
In the context of salaries, neither Heatley nor either of the other two players involved in this deal were great investments for 2008-09. Michalek was the best investment of the three, and given his offensive and defensive contributions, he was only marginally more valuable than a player who shared his $3 million salary last year.
Legend:
GVT: Goals Versus Threshold
GVS: Goals Versus Salary
2008-2009
Name GVS GVT Salary
Dany Heatley -15.5 13.0 $10 Million
Milan Michalek +3.6 11.1 $3 Million
Jonathan Cheechoo -6.0 1.5 $3 Million
Dany Heatley made $10 million last year and given his poor production was not an efficient use of cap space by the Ottawa organization, though his salary does come down by $2 million for the next couple of years. Jonathan Cheechoo has been a fairly poor investment, though he's only on the Ottawa books for another two seasons. As for the 6'2'' southpaw Michalek, his salary from last year will double in the 2013-14 season from $3 million to $6 million. While we can retroactively assess the productivity and value of Heatley, Michalek and Cheechoo from last year, we still haven't taken a glance at their VUKOTA projections for the 2009-10 season yet. Let's take a look at those projections now:
Legend:
OGVT: Offensive GVT
DGVT: Defensive GVT
SGVT: Shootout GVT
GVT: Goals Versus Threshold
GVS: Goals Versus Salary
2009-2010 VUKOTA Projections
Name P Age GP G A Pts OGVT DGVT SGVT GVT GVS
Dany Heatley F 28 80.7 33.9 36.7 70.6 10.4 3.1 -0.1 13.4 -9.1
Milan Michalek F 25 77.8 23.4 31.5 54.9 6.5 3.9 0.0 10.3 1.3
Jonathan Cheechoo F 29 64.2 14.5 17.7 32.2 2.5 2.3 0.0 4.8 -4.2
This upcoming season, don't expect a vast improvement nor a major decline in either of the three player's being exchanged in this deal on offense, defense or relative to their salaries. VUKOTA thinks the German native's best days are behind him and that he's likely to remain a poor investment for the Sharks organization in the near future. On the other hand, it views the 6th overall pick in 2003 and former Shark forward as having a difficult time replicating last year's numbers, at least for next year, and while Cheechoo has been bad, he's not as bad going forward as he had been last year. It may appear, without including the 5th round draft pick, that the Senators were the winners of this deal based on cumulative GVT. Considering that the Sharks are not likely to replace there latest roster opening with a replacement level player, but rather with a borderline regular, which consitutes a player with approximately a 2.5 GVT per 82 games based on Tom Awad's research, the deal becomes a wash.
The 25 year old Michalek is a fascinating player. With Cheechoo not likely to live up to the expectations Ottawa will surely place on him, this trade will likely come down to the short-term and long-term production of the Senators new left winger. Let's take a look at Michalek's top comparables up until 2008-09, excluding players that are more than two years different in age.
Milan Michalek Top Comparables
Player Season GP G A PTS PIM
Alan Haworth 1984-85 76 23 26 49 48
Jeff Friesen 2000-01 79 14 34 48 66
Bert Olmstead 1951-52 69 7 28 35 49
Norm Ullman 1959-60 70 24 34 58 46
Phil Esposito 1966-67 69 21 40 61 40
Jeff Friesen 1999-00 82 26 35 61 47
Guy Carbonneau 1986-87 79 18 27 45 68
Brian Bradley 1990-91 78 10 31 42 62
Alan Haworth 1985-86 71 34 39 73 72
Bryan Erickson 1987-88 53 7 19 26 20
On the entire list there are a total of 725 players that are comparable to Michalek, indicating that his career is easier to project than some of his other colleagues in the NHL. The average production from these 725 individuals in the year after being a top comparable of Michalek's include 65 GP, 19 G, 26 A, 45 PTS and 39 PIM. Prorated to an 82 game season, something Michalek is very capable of completing, those numbers become 24.4 G, 32.6 A and 57 PTS, which is very close to his 2009-10 VUKOTA projection of 77.8 GP, 23.4 G, 31.5 A and 54.9 PTS.
The 5th round draft pick adds little value to this deal, especially in comparison to the dealt away 2nd round draft pick, and might as well have been an 8th or 9th round draft pick (or these days a 7th round draft pick) according to the work Richard Pollock has done on the NHL Entry Draft. However, there are still a few hidden gems in the later rounds that organizations have an opportunity to pick up.
Overall, none of these players are likely to have such a profound impact on the ice next season that pundits begin declaring this deal a victory for either side. If this transaction ends up helping one team more than the other, it will probably take a few seasons before anyone realizes it. Taking all of the variables into account, this trade is a wash for both sides, considering that the producitivity of Michalek is brought down by the lack of producitivity of Cheechoo, the fact that Heatley's production won't be worth his salary, and that Heatley won't be the final piece to a Stanley Cup team, which could be a reason for making such an inefficient acquisition worth it to the team. The only big winner to come out of this trade are Dany Heatley's former Ottawa teammates who grew tired of his antics, which included not returning phone calls from fellow Senators, not showing up to family affairs such as weddings, and constantly suggesting he would be better off elsewhere. If San Jose's season goes as expected and Heatley doesn't help the Sharks make any more progress in the postseason as they have had in the past couple of seasons, Bryan Murray and the Ottawa Senators will end up having the last laugh at the end of the day.
Andrew Rothstein is an author of Hockey Prospectus.
You can contact Andrew by clicking here or click here to see Andrew's other articles.
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