2012 NHL Trade Deadline: Antoine Vermette Traded to Phoenix

At first, I thought it was a pretty humble return, but considering Vermette’s contract, a second, a fifth, and a minor-league goalie isn’t too bad at all.

It’s been reported that the fifth-rounder is a conditional one, any idea what the conditions might be?

Surprised we couldn’t get more for Vermette. Especially when Downie fetches a first. I’m sure his salary didn’t help

so between vermette and husesius. thats 8Mil of the books right there

Klesla is working out great
You guys beat the stinkin Sharks for us
And we’re happy with this trade

Signed
-Coyotes Fans.

Sad to see Vermy-the-person go, but he’d settled into a third-line role for this team and is being paid much higher than that. I hope he helps the Coyotes, and I hope the picks work out for us. This is basically a salary dump, and I’m OK with that heading into the summer.

last place teams cant be paying 4-5M a year for guys on pace for 37 points

I’m not overly pleased with this return, but my view is biased by the Vermette of old. And by old I mean any season other than this one. Even just two seasons ago, trading Vermette would have seemed odd or at least would have brought back much more.

But, alas, he’s having the kind of career awful year that the rest of the team is. And if he and others weren’t having that, we might not be talking about draft picks and instead we might be wondering if the Jackets could make a late-season run.

We drafted Boone Jenner in the second round last year, and TJ Tynan in the third (ironically, with Ottawa’s pick we got for Filatov). This pick isn’t worthless, per se. And it’s certainly cheaper than the rest of Vermette’s contract. Letestu and Johansen make him expendable, in a sense. I will miss his faceoffs and two-way play, but if his offense continues to decline, it’s good to get out from under the contract.

it seems everyone outside columbus thinks we got hosed. they havnt watched games. vermette has regressed so much he has been demoted to the third line on a bad offense. they cant get it out of their head vermette isnt very good anymore and he makes too much money, and his contract is long

I happen to be among the people that thinks we were underpaid a bit. Vermette hasn’t been the same this year, but he’s still very talented, and his contract wasn’t as outrageous as some other players on this roster. (Methot, Umberger, Tyutin) Before this year, Vermette has been a consistent 20 goal guy, who can win draws and play defense as well. A 2nd rounder and a 4-5th rounder just feels like underpayment. McElhinney is injured for the rest of the year, and an upcoming UFA anyway. I still don’t get Howson’s “salary dumps.” He trades Klesla, who is overpaid at $2.7 mil, and then signs Methot to a $3 mil a year deal. Stuff like that makes me scratch my head and wonder, WTF?

We will see what else happens, but come the playoffs, I definitely will be rooting for the Coyotes.

Vermy’s numbers have been steadily going downhill since he came to CBus. His contract is way too big for a player who is on the 3rd line, so I can’t blame Howson for this one. I couldn’t count the times he has fallen down this season either…shouldn’t hockey players be competent at skating?

I think this deal is good for both teams. I would have thought we could get more for Vermette, but I’m guessing most teams don’t see him as a top-six forward. We got a little more than we got for Raffi Torres, which seems pretty fair considering I think we got more than we deserved in that deal.

i think the only other move is to dump umb and his 5M a year contract alla vermette. we queitly have a good crop of young D men in nikki, moore, and savard who has really come on latey. couple them with veterans tyutin and wiz, and its not a bad unit at all. if u keep nash and carter, u have two solid anchors for each line (i like them seperate) with brassard playing great with nash, prospal, letestu, (assuming we get yukapov) and hopefully johansan comes along. Not to mention if we dump umb, we got his 5, huselious 5, and vermetes 4 Million each coming off the books. not to mention other random FAs who we will not resing like martinek and phalson another 5M. under my plan i give a perminant letter to dorsette and resign him for i think will be a cheap price. we will have to resign nikkiten, but he shouldnt be too much, and maybe mckenzie. other than that, we should have some money to spend. a few spots will need to be filled, but we can get some guys. this big question is goalie. i dont think any good goalies are going to be available and that position is expensive to sign proven guys. Do we resign sanford for a couple year contract and let him be thefill in guy until we find our franchise guy (or maybe until mason developes into one)? Sanford is ok…. hes not gonna win the cup i think, but hes good enough to start for some teams out there. i really dont have any answers here

I thank Vermette for his service to the Jackets. A fine player. I like the trade, and most importantly, we got a goalie out of the deal. Any chance we keep Nash now that the goalie situation might be solved with McElhinney?

Here’s the best thing I could come up with while explaining this deal to my brother who is a Hurricanes fan (and who had heard they might be in on Vermette before re-signing Ruutu):

Well, you could actually argue that, with the resurgence of Brassard (and, as bad as our team has been, since Arniel got shit-canned he’s been a completely different player… something like 17 points in 20 games after getting scratched and/or stuck on the 4th line nightly) and Johansen coming, our top two center spots are filled for the foreseeable short-term future; and that doesn’t even take into account the outside shot that Carter stays.

Vermette was then, at best, our third line center. We currently have three of those on our roster (Vermette, Pahlsson, and Mark Letestu). Pahlsson’s going to get traded by Monday as he’s an expiring, and Letestu has been almost every bit as good as Vermette this year, is younger (27 vs. 29), and is cheaper (signed through next year at $625K). We also have Boone Jenner in juniors, who’s probably about two to three years away, but is a great two-way guy who’s supposedly “letter material” when he gets to the NHL (currently Captain of his junior team, for whatever that’s worth). That’s the only collective reason I can think that Howson was comfortable basically dumping him off. Not saying it’s the “right” move, but that’s the way you could theoretically explain it.

Re: the comparison of Letestu and Vermette, I was going on a point-per-game metric. Vermy had 27 points in 60 games (.450 ppg), and Letestu has 12 points in 29 games for us (.414). Considering the difference in salary, that’s about a wash in my book.

.. and found this post http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/showpost.php?p=44667865&postcount=312 ..

Do people outside of Cbus not understand the whole salary dump thing??

I had no idea there are so many Howson supporters around here. I’m not the only one who thinks Howson gave up a lot to get a little in return, it’s the general consensus around the league. The guys over at thescore had a headline reading, “Vermette traded for a ham sandwhich.”

I’m not against trading Vermette. I’m not against trading anyone, but the rebuild has to be done in a prudent manner. Players like Sammy Pahlsson, upcoming UFA’s, yes, take the best offer by the deadline, and be done with it. But in this case, we didn’t HAVE to trade Vermette. If Howson was looking to trade him, and the best he could get back was a 2nd and a 4-5th rounder, you can always hold on to him, and try to move him again in the offseason, when more teams are open to taking on contracts.

This rebuild needs a prudent, guided hand at the helm in order to be successful. That will net the Jackets real long term success. A discount firesale of assets at the deadline, will just make the growing pains that much worse.