Odyua traded to Chicago

                

 

The Jets made their first deadline trade in the last hour by making a move expected by most, as Johnny Oduya was traded this afternoon to the Hawks in exchange for Chicago’s 2nd and 3rd round picks in 2013. The Jets’ rearguard was in the final year of a deal paying him an average of 3.5M a season.

It’s a deal that makes a fair bit of sense for both sides, given the circumstances. As I mentioned this morning in my game preview, the Hawks are in a mess at the moment, reeling in their own end on most nights. Oduya fits Chicago’s mold better than a few of the leadfoot types that were bandied about in rumours leading up to this afternoon, since the 30 year old is still pretty mobile, so his acquisition was fairly predictable from their side. They’re also the sort of team that can live without a few picks, what with the relatively young nature of their top player group.

For the Jets, Kevin Cheveldayoff’s savvy pickup of Grant Clitsome this morning paved the way for this move to be made with a minimum of displacement. Clitsome and Oduya have similar underlying numbers, since both were just OK against bottom pairing comp, and the if the Jets have one area of depth in the organization, it’s on the back end. Postma, Kulda and Redmond are fairly close to being ready, and since Oduya wasn’t likely to return without taking a giant financial haircut, Winnipeg’s likely done well here. I would have preferred a young forward, since that’s an area of clear weakness on the roster, but two picks for six weeks of a third pairing D has to be considered a solid return by any measure.