Dayton Musicmen Trade Deadline: Who came, Who left???

Three hours ago the trading period for the 2017-18 Regular Season went into effect. With all CCHL teams having reached the 60 game mark, many teams were quite active trying to make last-minute trades to improve their teams.

The most active teams were the Dayton Musicmen and the Sanibel Islanders, both with two deals. A total of just five trades were made on Monday, with FOR, WIS, GEO, NIA, SUD, and SIB all making one deal.

There were no jaw-dropping, blockbuster deals submitted to the league office...

For the Musicmen, we say goodbye to David Backes, Casey Cizikas and prospect Thomas Chabot. Backes and Chabot had been acquired three days ago from the Minnesota Norsemen, which was basically a salary dump for MIN and adding several prospects for the Musicmen.

Dayton welcomes Oscar Sundqvist and prospects Ben Jones and Nick Suzuki to the organization.

Sundqvist, originally a 3rd round draftee of Pittsburgh in 2012 was moved to the Blues in the Ryan Reaves deal earlier this NHL season. CCHL wise, Sundqvist was added to the Backes deal to create roster room for Backes on Wisborg.

Dayton saved roughly $10,000,000.00 in the deal by moving Backes.

Cizikas was moved to the Falcons who are preparing for what they hope will be a long playoff run. Dayton saved another $1M or so by moving the versitile forward.

Actually, two different conversations merged as Dayton had coveted Owen Sounder Nick Suzuki, a Center who was drafted 13th overall in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. Factoring in Niagara IceDogs Ben Jones, the two for two swap came together fairly quickly and without much of the drama that kills so many other potential deals that never quite make it to the finish line.

Then again, Dayton and Fort Erie are old, old trading partners in the CCHL due to the high level of respect between both GM's. Bill Corfield and Matt Young seem to have a similar approach and method of valuing CCHL assets. Corfield said, "Matt's pretty straight-forward. He knows his team, and he knows my team almost, lol, as well as I do. We both subscribe to the "win-win" approach, and that approach is built to get things done. Matt doesn't bring me silly stuff, his offers are pretty well thought out and we both walk away feeling like our take was a good and fair one."

Suzuki is tied for 6th in the OHL scoring race with 44 pts. in 28 games. Jones is tied for 31st in the league scoring.

The Musicmen now own the rights to four of the top 13 scorers in the OHL. Morgan Frost 55 pts., (3rd place), Suzuki 44 pts. (T-6th), Taylor Raddysh 44 pts. (T-6th) and Cliff Pu 42 pts. (T-12th).

Ben Jones brings the total of young guns in the OHL up to five in the top 31 spots.

Corfield added, "Let's not forget about Chabot leaving. He's a promising young dman who is stepping into a great situation in Ottawa, which will benefit the Falcons down the road."

"We wanted to beef up our prospect Center depth and we feel we're just about where we want to be. Sportsnet's December rankings for the next NHL Draft shows no fewer than 12 strong dmen in the top 31 player rankings. We suspect we will be a lottery team and probably one of the top 3 teams in terms of draft changes. Dahlin is the obvious stud in the draft and if we were in a position to draft him, I suspect we would. BUT, remember our history is that we usually move a top 3 pick to move down a few slots and add another 1st rounder. Will we this time? Who knows? I do know that we'll be adding some high profile blueliners by the time the first couple rounds are done."