Why the Erik Cole to the Detroit Red Wings Trade Could Work for Both Teams

It used to be that when Ken Holland and Jim Nill worked together on a trade, Detroit had two of the best minds in hockey figuring out what was best for the Red Wings. Now when they collaborate, we end up seeing a deal like the massive, complicated swap that brought Erik Cole to the Motor City on Sunday.

Let’s drill down into those pieces.

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Mattias Backman’s star has fallen somewhat since we rated him the Red Wings’ sixth-best prospect over the summer.

At the time of our ranking, he was a promising European defenceman coming off of a strong North American cameo in the AHL. He was so highly thought of that Grand Rapids coach Jeff Blashill encouraged a comparison to Danny DeKeyser in an interview with Fox Sports’ Dana Wakiji.

Since then, Backman has fallen out of favour with that same coach, to the point where (according to SBNation’s Red Wings blog Winging it in Motown) Blashill made him a healthy scratch for seven consecutive games, which in turn prompted him to return to Sweden. It’s easy to understand why Detroit would make the decision to move on.

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Mattias Janmark came in 10th on our summer list, and he’d be in roughly the same position now. He’s in his third consecutive season of solid scoring totals in Sweden’s top league, though his numbers aren’t so spectacular that he’s a sure thing on this side of the Atlantic. He’s a solid second-tier prospect, not a blue-chip option but with enough nice points to be of significant interest.

If two mid-tier prospects and a second-round pick sound like a lot to pay for an Erik Cole rental, that’s because it is. That’s also doubtless the reason for the conditional pick. If the Red Wings bow out early, Holland gets a significant asset back in exchange to help make the deal more balanced. If they go deep, on the other hand, nobody’s going to care that Detroit spent some futures to help the team.

Cole can help, though he’s an odd guy for the Red Wings to prioritize.

On the positive side of the ledger, Cole is having a spectacular season in some ways. His total of 33 points in 57 games doesn’t sound that impressive, but at even-strength Cole has scored 2.28 points/hour—among Red Wings, only Pavel Datsyuk has been more effective this season on a points-per-minute basis. He adds both the years of experience (more than 900 career games between the regular season and the playoffs) and the size that Detroit has always valued, and he’s versatile enough to line up on either wing.

On the other side of the ledger, his two-way play has fallen off sharply with time. Despite his impressive scoring totals, most of his regular linemates fare better by the shot metrics without him than they do with him. He also hasn’t outperformed the team average in terms of on-ice shot attempts since 2011-12, when he scored 35 goals for Montreal. Additionally, his scoring this year may be something of a bubble, as last season he ranked 11th of 12 regular Stars forwards in terms of per-minute scoring.

It’s a reasonable trade in a lot of ways, at least given what other teams are paying for rentals. Cole isn’t the kind of guy who can turn a franchise around, but he’s a reasonable top-nine option. On balance, however, it seems to favour Dallas. The Stars know exactly what they’re getting in those two prospects thanks to Nill’s years in Detroit, and if the Red Wings end up going on a good run, they will get that third-round draft pick back, leaving them with a second-rounder and two decent prospects in exchange for a pretty run-of-the-mill rental option.

Statistics courtesy of BehindTheNet.ca, Stats.Hockeyanalysis.com and NHL.com. 

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