Everett made two trades the past two days, acquiring 20-year-old Euro left wing Daniel Bartek from Brandon in exchange for a fourth-round pick, then picking up 19-year-old defenseman Shayne Brown from Medicine Hat for 19-year-old defenseman Tyler Kieffer. Here’s my take on the trades.
The Bartek deal was a no-brainer in my book. Brandon had a glut of overagers, and Everett was one of the locations that could take on an overage Euro. He’s pretty much exactly what Everett needed: an experienced, big-bodied forward who plays hard and can score. I’m sure Brandon would have loved to have kept him, and it’s not as if the Wheat Kings were hamstrung by his status as an overage Euro (Brandon doesn’t have any other Euros, either). However he was third in line among overage forwards behind Andrew Clark and Matt Lowry and therefore got squeezed out. One can argue that a fourth rounder for an overager was a little bit high of a price to pay by a team not expected to contend this season. However, because of the snafus created by the lack of a transfer agreement between the NHL and the IIHF, there’s more teams with open Euro slots than in the past, so the Tips had competition. And the last time the Tips dealt a fourth rounder for an overager, Moises Gutierrez scored 35 goals. Frankly, I was kind of expecting this particular deal and I think it will work out well for the Tips.
As for the Brown-for-Kieffer deal, that one was a little more puzzling. On the surface a 19-year-old defenseman for a 19-year-old defenseman doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense for either team. Neither team appears to have made a significant upgrade from the player it dealt, and neither team got any younger. On Everett’s side it makes more sense as Kieffer had been sent home for disciplinary purposes, so getting an equivalent replacement player who isn’t in the doghouse sort of takes the Tips back to where they were when training camp started. And, from everything I’ve heard, Brown is a character player who will provide a good example for Everett’s rookies, so he should be a positive addition. However, I am a little curious how the team plans on distributing playing time with nine defensemen on the roster. Is another move imminent? As for Medicine Hat, I can only surmise that either the Tigers believe Kieffer has untapped potential, which he might, or they did Brown a favor by moving him to a team where he’ll get more playing time.
I guess what I take most from these trades from an Everett standpoint is that the Tips clearly don’t consider this season a lost cause. These trades indicate Everett is committed to getting back into the playoffs, even when the Tips are supposedly in rebuilding mode.
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