As Ottawa looks to clear up cap space to sign Shane Pinto, a second trade option has emerged. While it’s well-known that the Senators have had discussions surrounding Mathieu Joseph, TSN’s Darren Dreger reports in the latest Insider Trading segment (video link) that the Sens have also had trade discussions involving defenseman Erik Brannstrom.
The 24-year-old was the centerpiece of the Mark Stone trade back in 2019 as Ottawa hoped that the 2017 first-rounder would become a key cog on their back end, particularly on the offensive side of the ice. That hasn’t exactly happened though as Brannstrom has just four goals in 191 career appearances at the top level. While he established himself as an every-game regular last season, he averaged just 16:07 per game, basically being their sixth defender.
On the surface, moving Brannstrom should be an easier task for GM Pierre Dorion than Joseph. While Joseph has three years left on his deal at a $2.95MM cap hit, Brannstrom is on a one-year agreement at a $2MM cost. With a lot of teams capped out or close to it, even $2MM isn’t the easiest for some clubs to take on but with a shorter-term agreement, a few teams might be more open to it.
That said, with Ottawa’s cap situation (they have less than $65K in room, per CapFriendly), moving out Brannstrom alone isn’t enough to get them enough money for Pinto as he’s expected to come in around the $2.5MM mark on his contract. In Brannstrom’s case, they’d need to bring a sixth defender back onto the roster if he was to be moved, eating into their cost savings. A follow-up move would need to be made – potentially via the waiver wire – in order for the money to fall into place.
On top of that, it’s worth noting that if Pinto gets a two-year bridge deal as expected, the cap hit for this season will be higher than the AAV (while next season would be lower). That gap from the AAV increases each day he goes unsigned, creating a bit more pressure for Dorion to find a suitable cap-clearing trade sooner than later whether it involves Brannstrom, Joseph, or someone else.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Dorion has really painted himself into a corner. I would imagine other GMs see that he has two 1st rounders next year and are standing firm on one in exchange for Mathieu Joseph, hence the need to pivot elsewhere. Too bad he couldn’t have just taken care of this a couple months ago, but now he has zero leverage. Not a great first impression to make with new ownership in town!
I know, seems like someone isn’t good at math, even at the cheaper deal the Sens offered Pinto he wouldn’t have fit.
Not signing Vlad would have prevented all of this.
Sad but true, be interesting to see if Vlad makes it worth all this headache. He has just one 30+ goal (none others even on pace to hit it) in the last 5 seasons.
Sooner or later, GMs will get the freaking clue that sound cap management involves NOT signing everyone and sundry to max term/max $$ contracts, constantly running up to the cap.
Signing Travis Hamonic so it means having to give away a productive player like Brannstrom or Joseph. Absolute genius.
Joseph and Detroit’s 1st for Bergren
Sad thing here is that there wasn’t the one bad decision by Ottawa’s management but three. They signed Tarasenko AND they signed Hamonic AND they bought out Del Zotto. Every single one of that moves was unnecessary or at least close to it. But none of those should have had higher priority than extending Pinto.