After the Washington Capitals traded center Lars Eller to the Colorado Avalanche for a 2025 second-round pick this week, many were pleasantly surprised by the return that Eller fetched, considering the 33-year-old has seen his production decline over the last two seasons, and his current deal carries a $3.5 million cap hit.
But the this week’s Eller deal with Colorado is only the latest in a series of dealings between the two franchises under Brian MacLellan’s tenure as Washington’s General Manager. And the past moves between the two clubs could be considered very favorable, or assisting in nature, to both sides of the equation.
Orpik’s Round Trip
On June 22, 2018, Washington sent goaltender Philipp Grubauer and defenseman Brooks Orpik to the Mile High City for the 47th overall pick (used on right-wing Kody Clark) in the NHL Draft the following day. Orpik was on the hook for $5.5 million cap hit for another season and was coming off a historically bad regular season where he tallied just 10 assists, a team-worst -9 rating, 44.29% five-on-five Corsi-for percentage (second-worst among team defensemen who played at least 20 games), 40.98% five-on-five expected goals-for percentage (second-worst), and 44.44% five-on-five scoring chances-for percentage (third-worst) in 81 regular-season games.
Washington had to trade Grubauer, a pending restricted free agent at the time, to re-sign defensemen John Carlson and Michal Kempny (both unrestricted free agents) in addition to right-wing Tom Wilson (restricted). Instead of making them sweeten the pot to take Orpik, they accepted Grubauer as the incentive and took the discount on him to also acquire Orpik.
The following day, Colorado bought out the final season Orpik’s deal and Washington re-signed him the next month at a much more reasonable $1 million cap hit for the 2018-19 season. It was such masterclass by Washington that both sides were interrogated by the NHL to ensure Orpik returning to the District was not part of the arrangement that both sides made with one another.
The Andre Way
A little more than 12 months to the day of the Orpik and Grubauer trade, Colorado stepped up and deal 2020 second- and third-round picks to Washington for left-wing Andre Burakovsky, who requested a trade four months earlier to get more opportunity in a team’s top-six forward group. Washington dealt the second-round pick acquired in the trade to the San Jose Sharks as part of a deal to acquire defenseman Brenden Dillon eight months later.
Burakovsky wanted (and needed) a change of scenery and it worked out very well for both him and Colorado. He set career-highs in goals (20) and points (45) in 58 games during his first season in Denver. Burakovsky came just one goal and point, respectively, behind that mark in his second season in Colorado.
Last season, Burakovsky set career-highs with 22 goals, 39 assists, and 61 points. Though he was a healthy scratch in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, he was still a valuable contributor with three goals and eight points in 12 games for the eventual champs.
The Great Dane
The previous two deals get us to yesterday where Colorado took Eller, a pending unrestricted free agent who Washington needed to unload, and paid Washington happily to acquire him. The 33-year-old recorded only seven goals and 16 points in 60 games this season before the trade. Washington, who is selling players on expiring contracts for the first time since captain Alex Ovechkin’s sophomore campaign, had to offload him with his contract set to expire and center Aliaksei Protas among the players in the system needing a bigger role.
Colorado arguably did not just do this deal to help Washington. They have lacked some depth down the middle after Nazem Kadri signed with the Calgary Flames last August in addition to both Nathan MacKinnon and Evan Rodrigues both having missed 11 games due to injury this season. With Colorado still very much in win-now mode and Bo Horvat (who was traded to the New York Islanders in January) and Ryan O’Reilly (dealt to the Toronto Maple Leafs last month) both off of the trade board, their options were waning.
Colorado also needed the help on the penalty-kill, where they are currently tied for 17th with a 77.5% efficiency and Eller, who averaged 1:51 per game (second among Washington forwards excluding right-wing Connor Brown), was among the leaders of his team in that department this season.
Still, were they really desperate enough to give up a second-round pick for a (declining) fourth-line center? Behind MacKinnon, both Rodrigues (11 goals, 27 points in 48 games) and Alex Newhook (13 goals, 23 points in 59) have had better seasons than Eller. There is more that goes into offensive production, of course, but the point remains that they paid a high price for a center who is no more than the fourth-highest on their depth chart.
Trading Partners
Wednesday’s Eller trade was just the latest in the well-established Colorado-Washington trade pipeline, and it’s very likely not be the last bit of business that we see the two sides make.
By Harrison Brown