Hello DeMelo!

It’s not Trade Deadline Day quite yet, but the NHL has seen a trio of trades (so far, day isn’t over yet) and the @Winnipeg Jets were in the thick of it, picking up 26 year old defenseman @Dylan DeMelo from the Ottawa Senators for a third round pick.

That’s it, that’s the tweet trade.

There are two things that should leap out at you right away with this deal. The first is that DeMelo – as we outlined when the news broke – has been one of the Senators’ best (if not the best) defensemen this season.

And as it was pointed out on twitter, there is a strong argument that could be made that he’s instantly the Jets best defenseman now which is a bold statement to make on a team with Josh Morrissey, but I think we all recognize that JoMo is having a very rough year at both ends of the rink.

Funny enough, it’s very reasonable to think DeMelo gets put with Morrissey on the top pair come Thursday when he joins the Jets in Ottawa for their game against the Sens and you could make an easier argument that DeMelo will be the best defensive partner Josh will have had all season, which hopefully helps his own game.

The added bonus of trimming @Neal Pionk’s minutes – he’s averaging a career high 23:31 this season which also leads all Jets players – shouldn’t be overlooked either. Pionk has been an absolute revelation this season for the Jets and has performed well above expectations despite the large work load, so his minutes can be dialed back a bit and he can be hopefully more effective at the end of games.

The second thing that jumps out at you when you see this trade is that DeMelo is a pending Unrestricted Free Agent this summer. He signed a two year deal with the @San Jose Sharks back in 2018 and two months later was traded to Ottawa as part of the @Erik Karlsson trade. He’s a player Sens fans were hoping to see remain in Ottawa past this season, and in lamenting how poor this deal is for the Sens, regard him as a very underrated player.

So on the surface, this indeed seems like a “rental” type deal even if a low-cost one, but based on the conversations from both DeMelo along with General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff this afternoon, it sure does seem like there is mutual interest to have this thing carry on beyond the end of this season.

Going past this season, the Jets are still going to have a need for a top four defenseman and DeMelo certainly fits that description. As an added bonus, signing him shouldn’t require a big time contract. It was rumored that DeMelo was looking for term in a deal to stay in Ottawa. His current contract is 900K and even if you’re going to give him a sizable raise from that, it shouldn’t be much more than three million a season. That’s something the Jets could do for three or four seasons if not more.

If he was ok with staying in Ottawa with their rink hours away from civilization, then surely winters in Winnipeg won’t phase him.

Also, don’t underestimate the idea that the Cheveldayoff understands that he has a pretty good chance to re-sign DeMelo. I don’t know that this deal would have been done if he didn’t at least do a little work before it was made to make sure he wasn’t getting someone who was looking forward to testing the Free Agent market this summer. GM’s and player agents can’t “negotiate” a player’s future if said player isn’t on that GM’s team, but that wouldn’t stop a GM from calling up an agent and just randomly throw out a hypothetical about a player, just to see if its something worth perusing in the future.

And now with this trade, Chevy and DeMelo can spend the next few weeks getting to know each other better, seeing if the fit works for both sides and then working on a deal well before July 1.

That’s a third round pick well spent.