Anaheim Ducks General Manager Bob Murray Dominated Trade Deadline

Feb 26, 2015; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Korbinian Holzer (55) takes down Philadelphia Flyers forward Claude Giroux (28) during the first period at the Air Canada Centre. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

Adding Prospects, Balancing Checkbook

The next two deals Murray made were for organizational depth and salary purposes. After trading away a young center Karlsson, Murray went out and found another young center. The Ducks acquired Michael Sgarbossa from the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for defenseman Mat Clark.

Sgarbossa is just 22 years old with nine NHL games to his credit. He will likely try to fill the void in the prospect pool that was created when the Ducks dealt Karlsson. The future is still a question mark for both Sgarbossa and Clark. Sgarbossa’s a playmaker and can put up points, but he’s very small and will have to overcome that lack of size. Meanwhile, Clark is a low-ceiling defensive-defenseman who did not readily impress with the Ducks in limited action this season.

Anaheim Ducks

Murray then went to dump some more salary to a team that had already flexed its financial muscle in a salary-dump deal earlier. Murray dealt Eric Brewer and a 2016 5th round pick to the Toronto Maple Leafs for defenseman Korbinian Holzer.

At the surface, this is a strict rental-for-rental swap: both Holzer and Brewer will hit unrestricted free-agency after this season. Both have also not had good seasons, but Brewer carried a cap-hit of almost $3 million (even after the Lightning retained 26% of his salary when the Ducks acquired him). Of course, this is no problem for the Leafs, who took on the contract of Nathan Horton ($5.3 million cap-hit, and that will give them LTIR relief) to unload David Clarkson.

For a budget team like the Ducks, this is an important move. The Ducks do not operate to the salary cap ceiling: instead, they operate under an organizational budget. The Ducks’ acquisition of Wisniewski automatically made him the Ducks’ third largest cap-hit player (behind Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf). The Blue Jackets retained no salary in the deal either, so the Ducks made some flexibility by freeing up some cap-room by dealing Brewer.

These are the types of shrewd moves that a GM of a budget-team has to make. The Ducks did not have the financial flexibility to make a splash, nor did they have the draft-pick assets to do so. Still, the Ducks made two very solid trades to shore up the blue-line without surrendering a first-round pick, added another prospect, and made deals to make the dollars work. He managed to deal away the three worst contracts in the organization, in Dany Heatley, Bourque, and Brewer. That constitutes as a successful trade deadline in itself, but he also made the team better.

Next: Final Overview