The Penguins trade Simon Despres to Anaheim for Ben Lovejoy

The Penguins trade Simon Despres to Anaheim for Ben Lovejoy

Well, this was hard to accept. The Pittsburgh Penguins traded Simon Despres, a 1st round pick by this organisation to the Anaheim Ducks for Benjamin Lovejoy, an ex-Penguin who was originally traded to them for a 5th. This was a late trade done just minutes before the 3pm EST deadline chimed in and I'm struggling to make sense of this deal really.

Simon Despres was originally drafted by the Penguins in the 1st round in 2009 and originally spent time in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton with the Penguins baby team there. After some years there he was finally given some chances with under Dan Bylsma last season. There were times last season when he was mis-used and given bottom pairing minutes when his play warranted much more but it was refreshing to see him this season given more top 4 minutes to aid his development. 

Ben Lovejoy was brought in by the Penguins as a free agent way back in July 2008 after a year with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton  Penguins and immediately spent the majority of the next two years spent there with a brief, 2 game, appearance in the NHL with the Penguins in the 2008-09 season. From 2009-2013 he played 96 games for the Penguins and scored 25 points before, as mentioned above, being traded to Anaheim for a 5th. 

Since leaving the Penguins his production hasn't changed much maintaining a 0.26 P/G pace but he enjoyed a career best year in 2013-14 where he scored 5 goals and 13 assists for 18 points, besting his previous best of 17 in 2010-11. Below are a few graphs showing the difference in Corsi & Fenwick;

CORSI

Fenwick

From the above we can work out that Simon Despres was often in a better position when on the ice and saw more chances for the Penguins than against which either shows that he was able to shut down the other team well or that he was more offensive than his numbers let on. Fenwick is slightly different in that it also removes blocked shots and we can see that Despres % goes up which indicates that his game outside of blocking is impressive. Compared to Lovejoy his numbers supersede him on all years for both stats except for 2012/13 in the Fenwick graph.

In all, I don't really like this trade. Simon Despres was one of my most favourite players on the roster and I see this as a backwards move if anything. Rutherford stated that one of the big reasons was that he had more experience but I don't believe that we should have traded such a talented young player to get it. We had other available assets that we could have used. I hope Despres does well in Anaheim and I'll be hoping they come out of the West. To Lovejoy, welcome back. It's going to be a big ask to see you perform as well, good luck.