Winnipeg Jets: Ehlers Injury Opens Up Possible Blockbuster Trade With Ottawa

Winnipeg Jets fans heard some bad news the other day, Nikolaj Ehlers would be out until mid February. With our speedy winger out, we should call the Ottawa Senators to discuss a few different possibilities within the next few weeks.

The Winnipeg Jets will be without one of their top players, when it was announced Nik Ehlers would be out for over a month with an upper body injury sustained in a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Nikolaj left in the first period, came back, only to play one more shift before leaving the game again.

Ehlers has 15 goals on the year, and ten of those are in the last 16 games. This is definitely going to going to take a toll on our position heading into the playoffs.

BUT WAIT! What if there was something GM Kevin Cheveldayoff could do to save us from taking a dip? Well there is. You may not know, but the Ottawa Senators have a few really, really good players that are set to become free agents in 2019. Basically rentals. Oh, and what else does Ottawa have? A bad record and a low place in the standings.

Let’s just take a quick peek at the top two Senators set to become UFA’s come this offseason. We have Mark Stone, Matt Duchene. The top RFA’s? Ryan Dzingel, Cody Ceci, and Colin White. If you have to ask me that’s a pretty solid bunch.

Now, forget the RFA’s. They’re most likely going to be re-signed by Ottawa anyways, and they’re not really what we’re looking for. But wait a second. Hold the phone. Everyone at the Trade Deadline is always forgetting about these guys, when realistically these guys could be snuck into the right deals in the right ways. These guys could be utilized with the UFA’s to create an absolute blockbuster.

Essentially, if you have an RFA, you have him. After some patience, that was proved by the William Nylander situation. If the Winnipeg Jets were to acquire a guy who they just simply couldn’t afford to re-sign, they wouldn’t lose out on him like they did with Paul Stastny. Either the player has to eat it for a year or two and accept a cheap bridge deal, or the Winnipeg Jets could easily trade him away for whatever else they had in mind.

So anyways, let’s get back on track. Essentially what I’m talking about here is Winnipeg swinging a deal that picked up two of Ottawa’s top players, not just one. So that means we’re working a deal where we either get both of Matt Duchene and Mark Stone, or one where the Winnipeg jets get Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel.

Both of those trades have their various aspects I like and dislike about them. The main problem with both is they’d be unbelievably costly. We’d be easily saying goodbye to our next two years first round picks, plus some prospects.

The Duchene/Stone trade would absolutely stack our offence beyond belief, giving us the relief we need on the wing, as well as some depth up the middle. The chances of losing both these guys in free agency is super high, as well. The only difference with the Dzingel trade is that you wouldn’t lose him to free agency.

Let’s take it back to Earth a bit here, though. Those are some crazy deals, however we have seen stuff like this happen in the past. If the Winnipeg Jets were to make a deal with the Ottawa Senators, the chances are it’d be for just one of these guys, rather than two solid players.