The Top 2017 NHL Trade Deadline Rental You Don't Want Your Team to Acquire

For Stanley Cup contenders, the 2017 NHL trade deadline represents a final opportunity to improve before the grind of a championship run. It’s also a chance to mortgage the future on players who don’t represent a real upgrade for what is already in the system.

Michael Stone of the Arizona Coyotes falls into the latter category for most teams.

Superficially, there are a lot of things to like about Stone. He’s big (6’3” and 210 pounds), he’s in the prime of his career (just 26 years old) and he had a 36-point season a year ago. He’s also one of those elusive right-shooting defencemen that every team seems to need.

It’s also a near-certainty that Stone will be dealt. In late January, Stone told Sarah McLellan of the Arizona Republic that there had not yet been contract discussions between his representatives and the Coyotes. With Arizona well out of the playoffs and Stone bound for unrestricted free agency, it isn’t hard to do the math there.

Stone hasn’t had a great season, but as McLellan notes, he’s coming off knee surgery last summer, so that’s not the primary concern with his game. The bigger issue is that superior partners have carried him for most of the last half-decade. 

Data via Stats.Hockeyanalysis.com

In 2013-14, Stone was a fourth-year pro, and his most common partner was well-known offensive defenceman Keith Yandle. Yandle also played with veteran Derek Morris and first-year pro Connor Murphy.

Yandle was at his worst when paired with Stone. The duo dramatically underperformed compared to the team average by either shot metrics or goal differential. Yandle’s numbers ticked up significantly with other partners, though.

That pairing didn’t last. For the next two seasons, Stone’s most common partner would be Oliver Ekman-Larsson, a highly respected two-way defender generally regarded as the best player on the Coyotes’ roster.

Data via Stats.Hockeyanalysis.com

The duo did pretty well, and this is when Stone’s reputation really took off. Yet even here, it’s hard to look at the results and be blown away by Stone’s work. Even the unremarkable Murphy outperformed the team average when playing with Ekman-Larsson, and both were eclipsed by veteran stay-at-home defender Zbynek Michalek.

That takes us to the present season, which is certainly Stone’s worst of the last few years.

Data via Stats.Hockeyanalysis.com

The comparisons here need to be taken with a grain of salt. When Alex Goligoski played with rookie Anthony DeAngelo, the two played softer minutes than the Goligoski/Stone tandem. When Goligoski partnered with Luke Schenn, the two played difficult minutes, but they have only spent about an hour and a half in that role—a span short enough to make it hard to read too much into the numbers.

Even with those caveats about 2016-17, though, there’s a discernible pattern here. Stone’s primary partner in each of the last four seasons has been a quality NHL defenceman, and that partner has done better in each of the last four seasons with his other partners, who haven't been terribly remarkable themselves.

Stone’s reputation, in large part, appears to be a creation of playing with Ekman-Larsson. Wherever he winds up, he won’t bring Arizona’s franchise defenceman with him. Add to that a poor season in 2016-17, whether the result of injury or not, and it looks extremely hard to justify paying a premium at the deadline for Stone’s services.

Statistical information courtesy of Hockey-Reference.com and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. Contract details via CapFriendly.com.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.