Fan In Van

How to bring the Heat

Word broke out early this morning that Ottawa Senators sniper Dany Heatley has asked for a trade. Heatley, who is entering the second year of a contract extension that sees him earn $45 million over 6 years (for a $7.5 million cap hit per season), apparently had issues with new head coach Cory Clouston going into the offseason and after some deliberation came to general manager Bryan Murray for a trade.

Before getting into any ridiculous trade proposals, it’s interesting to see how hard the Sens have fallen since making it to the Stanley Cup final in 2006. Their hot start in 2007 was shadowed by their horrendous slump in the last leg of the regular season only to get bounced in the first round by Cup finalist Pittsburgh, and then the team had one of their poorest regular seasons since the Damian Rhodes era. Two years after their run, the Senators are facing something between a complete rebuild and a complex retooling. They have a handful of good young defensemen in the pipeline with Erik Karlsson and Brian Lee, but neither appears to be ready for primetime, at least not for a couple years.

Furthermore, don’t forget that one of the biggest factors in trade making today is a player’s salary. At $7.5M for the next five years, Heatley’s trade value isn’t exactly skyrocketing through the atmosphere, but his superstar status makes him an attractive commodity which a team would build their team around.

Scoring goals was also a problem last season for the Senators despite their firepower up front. Replacing Heatley’s 40+ goals will be a tremendous task, but that hole can easily be fulfilled if the Senators are willing to dish out big money for a free agent forward like Marian Gaborik or even Martin Havlat (despite both being injury-prone players). As a result, perhas it can be argued the Senators’ most pressing need are a top-pairing defenceman who can score, a top-six winger to fill the void and perhaps a rugged grinder plus draft pick(s).

Which brings us to who could possibly be interested. Taking into consideration the Senators’ biggest needs and the probability they are looking to trade outside the Eastern Conference, here are the possible teams which could be interested and what the price could be to land the Canadian Olympian.

Edmonton: It wouldn’t be a huge stretch to suggest that Heatley, a native of Alberta, would like to play in his home province. Edmonton has both the salary cap space and desire to bring in a player of Heatley’s calibre and a high-profile winger such as himself could truly bolster their forwards corps. Edmonton has both puck-moving defencemen and a handful of enticing prospects to offer Ottawa.

The deal: Sheldon Souray, Robert Nilsson and a 2nd round pick for Dany Heatley and a 5th round pick. The deal gives Ottawa the booming shot on the point they haven’t had in a long time as well as a young centre who still has a lot of upside. Edmonton gets a scoring winger to accompany Shawn Horcoff and take some of the pressure off Ales Hemsky.

Los Angeles: Hard to believe the rebuilding Kings would want to bring in an expensive winger who’s on the hook for $45M over six years, but Heatley is one of a kind. Los Angeles has a plethora of cap space and players to offer and therefore that probably makes them a team kicking on the tires. Not only that, adding Heatley would bring Los Angeles one of the best players to play for the team since Luc Robitaille was in a Kings uniform.

The deal: Jack Johnson, Alexander Frolov for Heatley and 3rd round pick. Ottawa gets the young and ready Jack Johnson, who is ready to step in as a #1 defenceman right now and Alex Frolov, who will be a pending UFA at the end of next season. Frolov can help ease the pain of losing a 40-goal scorer while also bringing talent back.

St. Louis: It’s little known that one of Heatley’s favourite team growing up were the St. Louis Blues during the Brett Hull days and it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest he would approve going to a team clearly on the rise. There’s so much optimism surrounding the Blues with their young talent and adding Heatley would offer a veteran presence combined with clutch scoring.

The deal: David Perron and Alex Pietrangelo for Heatley and Alex Auld. St. Louis gives up a ton of youth and upside but get back a top-five NHL player as well as a serviceable backup to Chris Mason. Perron’s youth and skating ability would be a welcomed addition and Pietrangelo would join a bevy of talent on the blueline and make Ottawa a deep team defensively for the next five years. Having Pascal Leclaire and Brian Elliot in the fold makes Auld redundant.

Vancouver: Look folks, I’ll be frank: it’s a pipe dream… at best. Mike Gillis has already made it perfectly clear that signing the Sedins is the team’s top priority. And with both looking to earn around $6M+ and with the probability of wanting to lock up goaltender Roberto Luongo for the rest of his career, there’s little reason to believe it’s feasible to afford Dany Heatley. But if the Canucks were to somehow dump enough salary, this is what would need to be done:

The deal: Pavol Demitra, Kevin Bieksa, Mason Raymond and 1st round pick for Heatley. Even then, this might not be enough. Bieksa is the centrepiece of the deal going the other way, as his tenacity and scoring prowess would be highly coveted, but Demitra isn’t exactly young and talented and Mason Raymond is the biggest question mark out of all the aforementioned players. In any case, the Canucks free up about $8M to bring in Heatley. Again, it seems quite unlikely the Canucks will bother calling.