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LeCaptain wrote:Why does everyone always have to find a winner in a trade.
If you trade a player that you don't really need and it returns a player that adds more to your team it doesn't matter who is the better player.
And if you say "they could have gotten more" well guess what if they didn't get more it's probably because nobody offered more.
In the cap era, clearing space is an underrated factor in most trades to determine who wins. Look at the Spezza trade. He was never going to re-sign here. So, Ottawa ships him out, moves his $7M cap-hit ($4M salary), gets a young 3rd liner, two prospects, and a 2nd rd pick. Resounding win for Ottawa IMO. But if you base the trade on the players coming in and out then Dallas is the clear-cut winner - for now.
When Nick Paul scores 25g/year as an NHL'er and Spezza is retired, we'll all look back at that trade and say we got the better player. The cap hit will be a distant memory, but for Ottawa, it was a huge factor and allowed the organization to grow in a different direction.
Not saying that was relevant to today's trade, but I am just adding to your point that people try to pick clear-cut winners but there are a lot of underlying factors that get overlooked.
