Quoting: Leafs_and_Sens_Fan
Stone is the best defensive player in the league. He's much better than Gaudreau.
No, he's not "much better than Gaudreau".
He's better defensively, sure I can agree to that, but Gaudreau is an elite offensive player and on another level than Stone is.
Quote:
Between 2016 and 2019 Gaudreau placed 5th in the league amongst forwards in 5 on 5 scoring rate (2.58/60). The top 10 is:
Mcdavid
Kucherov
Marchand
Matthews
Gaudreau
Malkin
Kane
Crosby
Panarin
Guentzal
During the same time period only one player in the entire league was in on a higher percentage of his teams on ice 5 on 5 points and that was Mcdavid.
Also, the Senators had about 5 minutes to trade Stone before the deadline passed and then they were going to lose him for sweet **** all. The Flames have 2 years to trade Gaudreau, so they won't be settling for a package that small, or they will just keep him. Also, Vegas traded for Stone and then immediately had to sign him to an extension that paid him an AAV of $9.5 million. Gaudreau is locked in for two more years @ a mere $6.75 million. That is a friggin bargain for a player of his caliber. Players as good as he is get signed to $10 million + AAV contracts nowadays. That has HUGE value in a league that just announced a FLAT CAP for two more seasons.
That Stone deal is not a comparable at all and should be just the tip of the ice berg if Gaudreau is dealt.
For crap sakes Pacioretty got traded for Nick Suzuki, Tomas Tatar and a 2nd, Gaudreau's return should DWARF that.