When the deal first broke, many hockey people I follow on Twitter questioned the deal from a Florida perspective, and I can understand that viewpoint. Booth is the "name" commodity in the deal, and generally, in a trade, whoever gets the best player "wins the deal." I'm not here to analyze who wins the deal, I'm here to analyze the deal from the frame of reference of Mike Gillis and Dale Tallon. Each is qualified and intelligent; neither would make a deal that they didn't benefit from in some way.
Here's what I believe each GM was thinking when they pulled the trigger on the year's first major trade:
Vancouver Canucks:
The trade is perhaps more easily understood from the Vancouver perspective. The Canucks are a team desperately in need of secondary scoring (outside of the Sedin twins). Booth fits the type of player that they need. He's going to play alongside Kesler, who he played with as a kid growing up in Michigan, and he should fit nicely alongside the former Buckeye. Mason Raymond is still battling injury, and he's an RFA after this season--it might not be necessary to gamble on him now that Vancouver has Booth locked up for three years after this one.
Booth has often been regarded as an up-and-coming player, but he simply hasn't been the same after the crushing Mike Richards hit that concussed him in 2009-10. His 2008-09 season was a great one and earned him the current deal he has now which carries a $4.25 million cap hit. That's a contract I wouldn't have a problem giving to a 60 point scorer in his mid-20s, but the thing is, I'm not sure Booth is that anymore.
He had a terrible season last year, his first full one since the concussion, and that's even if you ignore his -31 rating, which I will, for reasons discussed on this blog. (It's important to note that Booth's PDO was only about 96 last season, the direct cause for his -31.) Regardless, the thinking is escaping Florida and giving him a change of scenery/a competitive environment should ignite him. Mike Gillis can hope. If he doesn't rebound, he's stuck with a $4.25 million hit and no longer has the contracts of Samuelsson and Sturm coming off the books after this season.
Many people wonder why Florida would give up on him this easily, and I'll address that, but from the Vancouver side, they can afford to take the gamble on Booth. Florida can't. That's the difference. It's also why Steven Reinprecht was included in this deal, as I'll also get to in the Florida section.
As with any move, there are the obvious benefits, and the subtle ones that really make or break the deal. Most of the Florida benefits fall under the subtle side, however, Vancouver has one of note: the 2013 third-round pick they acquired was actually their own pick, originally traded to Florida for Chris Higgins last season.
What does this mean? It gives them the freedom to potentially sign a big name 2013 restricted free agent to an offer sheet if they wanted to, as you need to have your own picks as potential compensation. Your list of 2013 RFAs? Among others: Lucic, Hall, Seguin, Pietrangelo, Hornqvist, Wheeler, Marchand, Bogosian, Skinner, Shattenkirk, Eberle. RFA offer sheets might be regarded as taboo today, but in two years, who knows? Getting that flexibility to potentially make a franchise-changing move qualifies as a no-brainer for Gillis. It might also be a fallback option if Booth flops and Vancouver has to buy him out and/or add the secondary scoring they presumably will still be looking for in 2013 should Booth not work out.
Regardless, the opportunity to take an affordable gamble (for them) on a potential 60 point player who's in his prime (age-wise), while giving up a package that upside-wise isn't comparable has to qualify as a good trade for Vancouver. It's clear why Mike Gillis made this move.
Florida Panthers
It's also clear why Dale Tallon made this move, albeit harder to figure. Let's think about Dale Tallon's reign as Florida Panther GM. Committed to reshaping the franchise, at the deadline last year, Tallon cleared out the bulk of the team to any and all buyers, receiving only expiring contracts in return. It's almost as if Tallon did not care whatsoever what kind of team he sent out on the ice in March and April of last season, as long as their deals came off the books July 1, 2011. Those expiring contracts gave Tallon the roster space, and to a lesser extent, cap space, to shape the team as he desired. That resulted in the big free agent frenzy this summer, and also this trade.
It's clear that Tallon did not think that David Booth was part of the Panthers core. There were rumors of Booth being shopped last season, so it didn't surprise me one bit he was moved. If you're Dale Tallon, what can you reasonably get for Booth? He hasn't been the same player since his concussion, and in the Crosby/Savard/Mueller aftermath, Tallon isn't going to convince anyone otherwise. At the same time, he doesn't want to pay a player $4.25 million a year if he doesn't believe in him being part of the franchise's future. So a trade is a given.
But what can you get in return? No team is going to give up an appreciable young asset for the reasons I described above. Tallon's only option was to make another expiring contract trade. If he could have gotten young talent that he liked in exchange for Booth, he definitely would have. GMs make the best trades they can make when a situation like this comes up. It's like the Dany Heatley trade from Ottawa to San Jose--Bryan Murray admitted he didn't think he was getting the better of the deal from a raw player-for-player evaluation, but it was simply the best offer he had received. This offer from Vancouver was undoubtedly the type of deal Florida would have had to make, and it helps them in several other ways too.
1) They no longer have to pay Booth. Like I said, he clearly wasn't fitting into their core. This is still a team that's a few years away. If Booth didn't fit into those plans in two years, it makes no sense to keep him around now. Plus, even in the small sample size of this season, Kris Versteeg and Tomas Fleischmann look better than Booth, who had been pushed to second line duty.
2) They no longer have to pay Reinprecht. I guarantee you that this was the key point of the deal for Tallon. Florida is a team that can't afford to stash salaries in the minors. With Steven Reinprecht down in San Antonio, that's essentially $2.175 million of literal wasted money for Florida (his cap hit is slightly less, but in this instance, raw salary is the number that matters). Without question, Tallon insisted that if he was going to take perceived lesser talent back for Booth, the other team had to take Reinprecht's salary with him. Vancouver can stash Reinprecht in the AHL, where his cap hit won't count and his paycheck won't matter. That latter statement doesn't apply to Florida and it's extremely important for a small-market team like the Panthers.
3) They get two expiring contracts while still staying above the floor for this season. I can see this being the pattern for Tallon. He's finding creative ways to maintain and build a young core while complying with the salary cap floor. I can see him acquiring a few more contracts like Samuelsson's and Sturm's this season if the team doesn't contend, and quite honestly, I doubt it will. I could even see him trading a few of the big names he signed this offseason for players with expiring contracts if the team falls out of it. Don't count this out, by the way. It makes total sense.
4) They get a player who can potentially help them this year. I'm not as sold on this fact as the Panthers president appears to be, but still, Samuelsson can play. He's a big body who doesn't always play big, but still, he's scored 50 points in back-to-back seasons and isn't a totally worthless throwaway. He doesn't play defense and is unlikely to gain consideration to be re-signed next year, but you could do a lot worse if you were trying to trade for a player solely because his deal expires in the off-season. I'm disregarding Sturm from this classification because he's done and is solely a throw-in.
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An all-around fascinating move, and another great example of a trade that has more underlying explanations than "player A is better than player B." Both teams knew just what they were doing and what they were getting. Vancouver gets the potential top 6 forward they need. Florida gets more cap flexibility on their rebuilding path and sheds a huge contract they clearly didn't believe in anymore. In my opinion, a good trade for both sides once the respective goals are understood.
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