Dayton, OH
A statement from Dayton General Manager Bill Corfield regarding this morning's trade with Springfield.
Good morning,
Late last night, we came to an agreement with the Isotopes to trade Nathan MacKinnon to Springfield. In return, we acquired a package of one young man already playing in the CCHL, former 24th overall pick in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft by Vancouver, Jared McCann. Jared is in his 3rd season in the NHL and since being traded to Florida a year ago has begun to really show the promise everyone knew he had. He's currently centering the fourth line for the Panthers and also seeing time on the power play. We envision Jared as a future 2nd line center or possibly as part of our checking line. We'll need to see how things develop.
In addition to Jared, we obtained four prospects we're quite excited about.
Victor Mete a defenseman, at just 19 has been skating with Shea Weber on the top defensive pairing in Montreal in the NHL. Mete sits 4th on that team in time on ice among dmen. A fabulous skater, Vic has shown a lot of poise so far and in time, should be a steady producer on their offense. We expect him to be a middle pairing guy for us next year and part of our power play.
Jeremy Roy is another defenseman currently playing in San Jose of the AHL for NHL Sharks. Taken with the 31st pick of the 2015 draft, Jeremy is 20 and we expect to see him join us in a year or two. There's a lot of talent ahead of him on the depth chart, but he's a little higher in terms of having turned pro already, so we may see him before kids like Fabbro or Makar. He's a well-rounded player, who knows his way around a power play.
Warren Foegle is a left winger, 21 years old, playing for Carolina's AHL team. He's got 4 goals in his first 4 games this season. We like everything about Warren. Great skater, very smart and defensively mature beyond his years. Another candidate for a future second line up here in a few years - or maybe less if he keeps scoring.
Danill Tarasov is a goaltending prospect out of Russia. 6'4, pretty big guy, he's a big part of the Bluejackets future plans as he is ours. He's the number one goaltender for Tolpar of the MHL. He's still 18 years old, so we'll be keeping an eye on him for the next few years. High upside if he develops correctly, and its good to be able to add another quality goalie to our prospect list, which is a little thin for our liking.
We also got our 2nd rounder back from Springfield, we project that to be a top 25 pick. That should give us three of the top 35 picks or so in the next draft, which we like a lot. We also picked up the Isotopes 4th rounder which is nice too.
All in all, we are very pleased with the return we got for Nathan. Our prospect system has steadily climbed in the rankings over the last few months, we expect to be in the top ten in the near future.
We know how to do this. We've done it before. The next few years will be a bit tough, but exciting to watch these young kids of ours come up and challenge themselves to play in the CCHL. Next year, we know we'll have Mattias Janmark all year, we'll have Severson, Borgman, Sanheim and possibly Chabot with us as well. Oh, and Victor Mete, too. That's six young guys who will help us be faster and be fun to watch.
In closing, we wish Nate all the best in Springfield. He's an amazing talent and while we've traded him twice, we think the world of him.
Thanks everybody...
