Quoting: LoganOllivier
I value defenceman for the impact they have on the game. Larsson doesn't have hardly any offensive abilities, and he doesn't have great possession numbers. Those two issues suggest he's a guy who just gets in the way of the puck a bunch but never really has it on his stick. If you look at him from an advanced stats aspect he's historically not been that great of a defenceman. He's actually not far off from Zaitsev in most statistical categories. Brown on the other hand may be a 3rd or 4th liner in TO but he could very well be the top RW in Edmonton. If you ignore the Hall for Larsson trade stuff and look at this proposed trade at a player for player level, I'd say Brown and Zaitsev for Larsson is either completely fair or really it could be a terrific trade for Edmonton. Moving 1 ok defenceman and getting almost the same player back Zaitsev and a talented, fast winger who could play higher in your lineup. This is the type of trades Edmonton desperately needs to make right now. They have a huge depth issue in their forward ranks and they need value contracts of which Brown would fall under.
If you look at numbers in a vacuum and don't look at who they are playing, yea thats a great way to do things.
Zaitzev's underlying numbers are helped because matthews, tavares, marner, nylander, marleau etc have great puck possession numbers and anderson has played great this year.
larsson is on a bad team, of course posession numbers, corsi etc will be worse.
Its like some bat signal comes up everytime there is a leafs trade to sign the praises of guys.
Then eventually carrick gets dealt for a 7th, leivo for a career minor leaguer, nielsen for a career minor leaguer. look at leafs posts from over the summer, all these guys were in trades for doughty etc.
reality checks eventually come.