Former Montreal Canadiens forward Jiri Sekac was 'shocked' by the tradeGetty Images
This is not a trick that beginners should expect to pull off: First, evaluate one of your NHL team's most obvious needs, then fill it, and still manage to surprise everyone when it happens.
It was clear last summer the Montreal Canadiens had a hole at right wing. It was also evident in recent weeks that it hadn't been conclusively plugged, yet general manager Marc Bergevin's latest attempt to do so on Tuesday caught the hockey world unawares.
Give one of the league's premier deal-makers bonus marks for sticking the landing.
Definitive judgments will have to wait on whether erstwhile Anaheim Ducks forward Devante Smith-Pelly is a more effective solution than Jiri Sekac, who wasn't given much of a chance and didn't produce enough offence to earn more of one. (Sekac was, he told reporters in St. Louis, "shocked" to be traded.)
Anyone can debate the relative merits of Sekac, signed from the Kontinental Hockey League last year, and Smith-Pelly, a former second-round draft choice. But it's disingenuous to argue the clubs haven't sought to address organizational gaps in swapping one for the other.
Bergevin said he's "been looking for a while" for a right-shooting forward to bolster the Habs' goal-scoring attack, which sits 23rd in the league at even-strength.
"This is a young player with a lot of potential that hasn't yet been tapped," Bergevin told a clutch of reporters in St. Louis, where the Habs played the Blues on Tuesday. "A righty for us is important, and especially to have a guy who will go to the net and stay there. He can kill penalties as well."
Sekac and Smith-Pelly are 22 and have nearly identical point totals in their first season as NHL regulars. Both are slumping – in a strange bit of symmetry, both players have only two points in their last 20 games – and have broadly similar possession numbers, near-matching salaries, yet vastly different playing styles and body types.
In training camp it was hoped Sekac, a creative, swift player but a natural left-winger, could slot seamlessly into the right side of the top three lines at the Bell Centre. For a time, he did (aided by the fact Rene Bourque was shipped to the Ducks via the minors).
Then the seams started showing – the Czech went 22 games without a goal and has lately found himself in the press box.
Smith-Pelly is one of the seemingly endless options the Ducks tinkered with on their top two lines, but the experiment never took.
Who knows? The Habs might benefit from having a bulky, feisty winger to help with their deficient play along the boards and provide a straighter vector to the net. The Ducks' top line could find a use for a lean, intelligent, finesse player with good defensive awareness.
If so, this might be taken at face value as a sensible hockey trade.
"We needed a little more skill. Montreal, a very skilled hockey team, wanted a little bit more of a rugged up-and-down type of guy," said Anaheim GM Bob Murray. "It's just two teams making a change of young players. Both players were kind of stuck."
That the move features two teams that are playoff cinches and a pair of GMs whose relationship dates back to their playing days – Bergevin's first NHL defensive partner and road roommate was Murray – merely adds a few frills.
There will be those who – perhaps rightly – criticize Habs coach Michel Therrien for not giving Sekac more of a shot on a scoring line despite the injury absence of Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau (Sekac played only token minutes with top-line centre David Desharnais and relatively scant time with second-line pivot Tomas Plekanec).
But Smith-Pelly is also a player who has been bounced around – despite playing left wing and centre at points, "I've played right wing all my life," he said. And the Ducks evidently thought enough of his talents to play him alongside top centres Ryan Getzlaf and Ryan Kesler for nearly 70 per cent of his minutes (much of that earlier in the year).
The Toronto native, who will wear Brian Gionta's old uniform number 21, is well-acquainted with several current Habs, including World Junior teammates Nathan Beaulieu, Brendan Gallagher and Michael Bournival, and fellow Torontonian Christian Thomas.
He's also good friends with defenceman P.K. Subban's younger brother Malcolm, so he knows the Habs' superstar.
Because this is Montreal, there will be keening and wailing and gnashing of teeth over what is essentially a straight-up swap of third-liners.
Smith-Pelly isn't a volume shooter like Gallagher, the team's highest-scoring right winger, but he does tend to fire his estimable wrister more than Sekac. He also has other attributes.
"I think my game can mesh well with the faster guys and creating space," he said.
The first order of business for Smith-Pelly, after picking up a winter coat, will be to join his new team in Columbus on Wednesday. His Bell Centre bow should come Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
"Those are the games you dream of," he said.
By then, perhaps Bergevin will have pulled off his next trick: shoring up his blueline.
The hockey intelligentsia will doubtless be surprised.
With a report from Eric Duhatschek