Brandon Sutter Trade: Pittsburgh Penguins Make Out like Gangbusters

The Pittsburgh Penguins made out like gangbusters today as they dealt center Brandon Sutter and a 2016 3rd round pick to the Vancouver Canucks for forward Nick Bonino, defenseman Adam Clendening, and a 2016 2nd round draft pick.

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Penguins GM Jim Rutherford, formerly of the Carolina Hurricanes, just pulled off his best trade in a long while. He dealt Sutter, a pending UFA after this season with a $3.3 million cap hit and a 3rd rounder for Nick Bonino, a player with significantly better stats last year than Sutter and a much lower cap hit at $1.9 million, Adam Clendening, a former 2nd round pick defenseman who is on the verge of breaking into the NHL at the age of 22, and a second round pick.

Quite honestly, this trade made no sense at all for the Vancouver Canucks. Breaking down the trade, Vancouver traded Bonino for Sutter straight up and got a player who is worse in many areas, a second rounder for a third rounder, which of course makes no sense, and then they gave Pittsburgh a young defenseman with decent upside as well.

Nick Bonino, 27, tallied 15 goals and 39 points last year for a playoff team in Vancouver. He has broken out in recent years and now has two straight 39+ point seasons. He tallied 49 points in the 2013-2014 season with Anaheim.

Brandon Sutter, 26, isn’t a bad player, but he never received high praise from the fans in Pittsburgh. He netted a notable 21 goals last season with 33 total points and was a +6.

Numbers were there, for the most part, for the former Carolina Hurricanes first round draft pick, but at a closer look, maybe they aren’t as great.

Let’s take a look at some advanced statistics for Sutter over the past few seasons.

http://ownthepuck.blogspot.ca/2015/02/horizontal-evaluative-rankings-optic.html

According to the data from ownthepuck, since the 2012-2013 season, Brandon Sutter scores like a solid fourth-liner or lower-end third-liner and plays third line minutes, but he’s on par with fourth liners in terms of his influence on line mates, corsi, and a majority of his other HERO stats.

At $3.3 million per season, Sutter is a bit overpaid for what he supplies, which makes the trade even more worth while for the Penguins. They cleared cap space and got rid of a player that really wasn’t all that worth it. They went out and used the money to sign Eric Fehr, a player with much better numbers, to a three-year deal.

Something that Brandon Sutter will be missed for, however, is his ability to win faceoffs and be an affective penalty killer for the Penguins.

Now, let’s look at Nick Bonino.

Bonino’s HERO numbers are significantly better than Sutter’s in almost every single category.

In less time on ice, Bonino scores more, has a good impact on his linemates, and has an all-around better presence on the ice compared to Sutter.

Bonino has proven to be much better as an offensive player and also has the flexibility of playing both winger and center, which can resemble a guy like Jussi Jokinen, a player who was incredibly versatile for the Hurricanes, and now doing the same stuff with the Panthers.

The numbers favor Bonino by a significant margin, but not all stuff is as it seems on paper. Sutter spent 2 years as an alternate captain in Carolina before being traded to the Penguins, so there is a leadership factor there, so take that as you may.

If it were me, I would rather have Bonino than Sutter. Sutter was a great young player in Carolina prior to being dealt in 2012, but he has not scored 40 points in a season since the 2009-2010 season, despite seeing more ice time in three out of the five years since.

One for one, the Penguins won the trade, but there was more to this trade. The Penguins also swapped a third rounder for a second rounder, so that is another win for the black and gold. The Pens also got a nearly NHL-ready defenseman Adam Clendening.

Eliteprospects.com has the following scouting report for Clendening:

"A smooth skating two-way defenceman that can read the game like a forward. Possesses slick hands, a good stick, and a sharp shot that jumps off of his stick. All-in-all, a productive two-way defenceman that has a high offensive ceiling, and is responsible defensively. (Curtis Joe, EP 2014)"

He played 21 NHL games last season and had a +2 rating with 4 points. He was traded from the Chicago Blackhawks to the Vancouver Canucks during the season.

So, Pittsburgh won the trade, and most people around the league have been left scratching their head wondering just what the Vancouver Canucks were trying to do here.

This trade wasn’t as big as the Phil Kessel trade earlier in July, but considering what they gave up and what they got back, this trade was a better bang for JR’s buck.

The Penguins lost some stability from a two-way forward perspective in their bottom six, but they gained even more offensive upside in the middle of their forward unit, a better draft pick, and defensive depth. And what the team lost in Brandon Sutter, they gained back just minutes later with the signing of Eric Fehr.

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