Trade Deadline Preview: Defenders
We look at the trade deadline with a focus on the Winnipeg Jets
Welcome to The Five Hohl
The best deep-dive hockey analytics blog focusing on the Winnipeg Jets. Also the worst. We’re 1/1—winner by default.
Today, we look at today’s trade deadline and how these pieces potentially fit for the Winnipeg Jets.
I had long ago planned out this article, but it evolved into a multi-piece series since the Winnipeg Jets’ needs are so nuanced. After all, the Jets are simultaneously a legitimately very good team while also having glaring weaknesses that could potentially be exposed in the postseason.
FIRST, A RECAP
Part One: We compared the 2024-25 Winnipeg Jets to previous Stanley Cup winners
Part Two: We discussed evidence based roster construction
To recap:
Goaltending and 5v5 offense are the most important areas for potential contenders. The former is elite for the Jets, but the latter is a struggle.
Power play, 5v5 defense, and finishing are the next most important areas (in that order), with the Jets performing anywhere from above average to very strong.
Penalty kill tends to be fairly unimportant in comparison, which is good because the Jets are pretty terrible there… but improving it would still help.
Forward depth is a team strength and unlikely to be upgraded via trade. However, the top end is lacking (top line at 5v5 and 2C).
Defense is the opposite, with some elite pieces (Morrissey, Samberg, and Miller) and some suboptimal performers (DeMelo, Pionk, and Stanley).
The Jets do not need to target size on defense—just good players. Performance models already account for size, and the only study showing the importance of size was heavily flawed.
Individual past playoff performance seems to be significantly less important than past regular season performance in determining who will help most in the playoffs.
Just for those who missed it, here’s the visual showing the Jets’ team performance compared to past Cup winners:
And here is the Jets’ individual performance after adjusting for ice time and usage:
Finally, the Jets’ line performance at 5v5:
Looking at each line’s performance relative to historical performance:
Scheifele line: 50th percentile for a top line
Lowry line: 90th percentile for a second line (95th for a third)
Vlad line: 75th percentile for a second line (85th for a third)
Kupari line: 95th percentile for a fourth line
And now defensive pairs:
The quick and dirty of it:
Morrissey-DeMelo have treaded water, but could be a lot better for a top pair
Pionk may be suboptimal, but he has worked with Samberg (just look away when he’s not with him)
Miller has been good provided he’s not with Stanley
Defenders
Right Shot
The Jets are in a weird spot at right defense, where they have three guys:
One guy (DeMelo) who historically has been really good but can’t seem to put it together this season, right after getting a 4×$4.9M extension.
One guy (Pionk) who has been really bad for a while but slightly better this season in his contract year, provided he’s stapled to the hip of the elite defensive defender Samberg.
One guy (Miller) who has been outperforming the other two after adjusting for usage, but the team doesn’t seem to trust him since he’s been healthy scratched multiple times, despite Stanley never sitting in the press box healthy once.
Any quality addition to the top two pairs likely improves the Jets, but that improvement will be less than the distance between the new guy and DeMelo/Pionk because it means Miller sits.
Tier 1
It’s not going to happen, but hear me out…
People think Karlsson is bad because he’s played on some garbage teams throughout most of his career. Sure, he gives back almost as much as he creates… but Neal Pionk gives back more than he creates, and he works damn fine with Samberg. Imagine how good that pairing would be with someone even better.
His defense stinks, but he’s legitimately been providing top-pairing value every season of his career except his first two seasons and one year with poor puck luck with on-ice shooting percentage.
I don’t know how you make it work, nor do I believe he’d come to Winnipeg, and I also doubt the Jets would swap him for Pionk… but it’d be neat.
Otherwise, there isn’t really a “tier 1” for right-shot defenders being advertised as available.
Tier 2
Rasmus Ristolainen
The Jets have always liked Ristolainen. I’ve been told by a Buffalo Sabres source I trust very, very highly that the Jets tabled a trade for Ristolainen and then-prospect Asplund for Ehlers and Appleton. The trade didn’t go through, obviously, but there is history.
Had the Jets done that, it would have likely been a disaster. Ristolainen has been terrible, while Ehlers has been the Jets’ best pound-for-pound and minute-for-minute forward for nearly a decade.
However, Ristolainen has been much better as of late. His offense is essentially unchanged, but under John Tortorella, who has forced him to simplify things, and with a reduction in minutes, usage, and matchup toughness, Ristolainen has found a sweet spot where he can contribute.
The 6’4" defender has moved to being average defensively to pair with his average offense. It should be noted that 2.1 of his +3.8 value above average comes from penalty differentials, which I don’t expect to be predictive of future penalty differential performance.
Ristolainen on the Jets would likely fit best alongside Morrissey, where Morrissey could move the puck for him. Looking at microstats from All Three Zones, Ristolainen doesn’t really do much other than break up plays and retrieve dump-ins. Otherwise, he’s fairly passive and dependent on his partner.
That’s a bit scary for someone relied upon to pair up with the team’s number-one defender.
It would never happen, but I’d almost suggest the Jets split DeMelo and Ristolainen with Morrissey then. This would give more minutes to their star defender without overloading either DeMelo or Ristolainen.
Connor Murphy
Murphy has a lot of comparisons to Ristolainen.
Both defenders are about 6’4", right-shot defenders, with another year of term available.
Both defenders struggled on their first team but seemingly pulled it together after moving. Both are considered more defensive defenders but don’t really excel in any particular area. Both retrieve a lot of the dump-ins on the team but have a tendency to botch said retrievals into turnovers at times.
Still, I would suggest that Murphy is the slightly superior defender at 5v5, while Ristolainen has been better on the penalty kill.
I would expect Murphy to be a bit of a better fit with Morrissey, but I could be wrong, as neither is a standout.
Tier 3
This is the “do we have to” tier.
Brendon Carlo
Carlo, defensively, is the best defender on this list, both at even strength and on the penalty kill. However, that has come at a trade-off with poor offensive results. Until last season, that trade-off had been a positive one, but not recently.
Like DeMelo, Carlo is a defensive specialist whose abilities in preventing controlled entries, breaking up defensive zone plays, and maintaining a strong gap made up for his lack of offensive prowess. However, like DeMelo, he has been a suboptimal defender this season (and for Carlo, last season as well).
Unlike DeMelo, whose offensive impact falling has been the issue, Carlo’s problem has been his defensive impact—his trademark—collapsing.
Carlo would be a risky shot to try and upgrade DeMelo. Spending assets to trade for a defensive specialist who has been struggling for two years in hopes of a bounce-back to upgrade on a defensive specialist who has been struggling for one year doesn’t seem like an optimal decision.
David Savard and Luke Schenn
Let’s not. What’s the point of depth if they are not any better than the depth you already have in Fleury and Heinola?
Left Shot
The Jets have two elite-level left-shot defenders in Morrissey and Samberg, and they know it. However, they could really improve the weakest member of their 23-man roster, and it wouldn’t be difficult to upgrade.
Tier 1
Jamie Oleksiak
Oleksiak is what the Jets were hoping would come of Stanley, but that does not look like it will ever be the case.
This 6’7" left-shot defender was actually a late bloomer and developed into a difference-maker. That said, it’s been a tough year for the sibling of a well-decorated Olympian.
Oleksiak’s normally strong defensive and offensive impacts at 5v5 have cratered with Seattle’s struggles and his poor fit with Montour as a partner.
Unlike what one would expect with a 6’7" frame and a reputation for physicality, Oleksiak is more of a two-way defender than a defensive specialist and is fairly underrated for what he accomplishes with microstatistics.
He’s historically good at defensive zone retrievals and recoveries but is also a fairly solid puck mover. He does have a lot of turnovers, but he also moves the puck quite often, so his efficiency isn’t that bad. His gap control is good, and he protects both blue lines quite well.
He’s even pretty decent at setting up shots and scoring chances in the offensive zone.
He is pretty much perfect given the role the Jets would likely place him in, as long as he skates with DeMelo or Miller on the right side. He’s a solid top-four defender on the third pair who could move up in case of injuries—something they don’t currently have on the left side.
K’Andre Miller
I’m skeptical he’s available, but he’s on some trade bait lists, so here we are.
Miller is pretty solid, albeit unspectacular. He’s now arguably the team’s number-one defender since Fox is injured and both Trouba and Lindgren have been traded away.
What’s impressive about him is that he’s solid at 24—the same age that Heinola and Stanley are/were trying to prove themselves to be NHL regulars.
Tier 2
Usually, these guys would all be tier 3 defenders, but it’s not hard to upgrade what the Jets should wish to upgrade on the left side, so they are tier 2.
Matthew Grzelcyk
Grzelcyk is a last name that I normally copy and paste.
He was also a very solid defender in his prime in Boston but started to crash in his later years—even before Pittsburgh signed him to his current contract.
I view him as better than Stanley, but I think in order for the Jets to be comfortable bringing in a player to supplant LS, they need to provide size and penalty killing. Not because they should, but because the Jets believe they should.
Mario Ferraro
Ferraro has been overused and overutilized because he’s been on a very bad team his entire career. Maybe we’re finally starting to see what we should expect of him as he took a step back in responsibilities with the addition of (now traded) Walman. Or maybe it’s being strapped to the underrated Liljegren.
The 26-year-old is not young by any standards, but he’s not old either. He plays pretty tough, although typically his overall impact is still shy of what you want from a defender on a Stanley Cup-contending team.
Maybe this year is the year he comes out of his shell. He has started to provide some offense at even strength, and San Jose is the tire fire of tire fires… or whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Bowan Byram
The defender is starting to look like a draft bust. He’s now struggled on two teams in different roles. He has looked good in flashes, but usually, these are with the team placing him in a very advantageous situation with linemates and deployment.
Overall, adding Byram would be a gamble that the Jets could fix something two other NHL teams failed to do. The upside if they were to succeed is quite high, but the probability is also quite low.
And, again, I think the Jets want their third-pairing left-shot defender to be a penalty killer with size.
Zac Jones
And if that’s the case, I doubt they are interested in Zac Jones either.
Jones is a lot like Heinola in that his usage has been so little, inconsistent, and far in between that I’m skeptical of any analytical results, whether good or bad. That said, he’s more a PP2 specialist, and the Jets are not looking for that with their upgrade on Stanley.
Extras
I had a few requests online for skaters to look at who weren’t on SportsNet, TSN, or Daily Faceoff’s Trade Boards.
I have no idea if these guys are available or realistic.
Want to talk average? Kesselring is like the least offensive player in every metric.
Normally, a skater with results like this is because they have essentially no ice time, but Kesselring has been almost consistently Utah’s fourth-most deployed defender.
He’s a young(ish), right-shot defender with size and is an RFA (although arbitration-eligible). Those usually don’t come cheap relative to their actual performance. I’ve always thought he’s performed well against the Jets.
Schmaltz is a guy I suggested the Jets go after before. He’s small, but he’s a serviceable upgrade to many of the Jets’ skaters. He does well offensively, and he’s pretty consistent there. He’s normally a pretty good finisher relative to his expected goal production, but he’s dried up a bit this season. That might mean he’s available at a discount, as GMs tend to buy high and sell low when it comes to on-ice and individual shooting percentages.
He also has another year on his contract.
The biggest issue would likely be that while he has played center, he hasn’t done it much as of late.
I always may have some bias toward players that I suggested were either over- or underrated in their draft years. Zacha was one I suggested was overrated.
He hasn’t been that great of a performer in New Jersey or Boston after adjusting for usage and minutes. He trends more as an acceptable fourth-line player, and that means he may only be an upgrade on Kupari… maybe.
He’s decent on the PK, but that’s been hit or miss over most of his career.
If you want to talk ups and downs, check out Coyle.
Coyle has been deployed as a 2C or top-six winger for much of his career, but optimally a team would want him more as a third/fourth-line forward.
His ups and downs come from his offensive performance moving all over the place, while his defensive impact has remained consistently poor.
Pettersson doesn’t come cheap, especially with his contract. Either you are risking a very large contract on a player who has struggled to produce, or you are trading significant assets to eat up that contract with retention.
A lot has been made of his drop in production, but much of that comes from shooting percentage. His actual shot quality hasn’t changed, but how many go in has:
Regardless, he’s still providing top-line caliber results. I don’t think he’s going to have too many point production issues with a team that’s as good at scoring as the Jets and with a winger as great as Nikolaj Ehlers.
Still, do the Jets have room to swap someone off of their top performing power play unit? Otherwise, he will never reach the point totals everyone hopes from him.
Here is the Canucks winger I’d actually want—not Boeser. That seems to be the case in Vancouver, as Garland is actually the forward most likely to play any given minute… even more so than Pettersson, or even JT Miller when he was still on the team.
Garland is a feisty right-shot winger who may be undersized but doesn’t play like it.
Fun story—when Kyle Connor was snubbed from the US World Junior team, so was Garland. Imagine how much talent they left at home. Ridiculous.
Anyways, it would never happen, but a second line of Ehlers-Schmaltz-Garland would be so cool because they would be so ****ing good but would piss off so many old-school fans who want #bigboyz in the playoffs.
Closing Thoughts
So yeah, that’s my take on some of the guys available.
This doesn’t cover everyone available or the best options, but I think these two pieces show what the Jets need to keep up with the arms race and why certain players would make a better fit for the team than others.
Anyways, I’m excited for Cheveldayoff to pick up a center I didn’t know was available, some depth winger that causes Barron or Perfetti to get sat, and a depth defender sitting in the press box for Stanley.
Semi-kidding.
I’m going to Ottawa for a two-day work trip, so if the Jets do pick up some significant players today, I’ll make sure to get a write-up done as soon as I can—but it may not be until Monday.