Golden Knights acquire Mark Stone

Today’s NHL trade deadline brought with it a lot of drama for the Golden Knights about what they’d be up to and how GM George McPhee would handle exhilarating a struggling group. He did not disappoint. 

Just before the 3 p.m EST deadline, the Golden Knights made a major acquisition, acquiring star forward Mark Stone from Ottawa. 

Mark Stone, 26, was the prize of this year’s trade deadline period. The winger has major offensive prowess, having 28 goals and 34 assists for a total of 62 points this season. He has totaled 20 goals or more for now his last 5 seasons, including this one. So this is not just a fluke for him despite this being his best season of goal-scoring so far. 

Going to the Senators is Erik Brannstrom, Oscar Lindberg, and a 2020 second round pick (originally from Dallas). 

Brannstrom is the centerpiece to this, and for good reason. He was one of the Knights’ high 1st round picks in their first NHL draft and he has blossomed in the minors as one of the premier defensemen prospects in hockey. He is also very-nearly NHL ready, so a struggling Senators team will get a chance to see him possibly sooner than the Knights would have as a contender. 

Oscar Lindberg was an on-again off-again player for the Knights. He was decent, but never played consistently.  He will get a better chance with the Senators. 

The 2020 second round pick is one a few that Vegas holds, so they will feel no problem giving it up in this deal.

The return seems heavy for a rental, but it is a good thing he is not a rental as Vegas is extending Stone for 8 years at a $9.5 AAV. The deal cannot be signed until March 1, but Stone himself has confirmed a tentative agreement is in place. 

Given everything, this seems like a good trade for the Knights. Sure they gave up a lot, but to get a legitimate and consistent scorer like Stone is going to take a lot to acquire no matter what. And since he comes with an extension, the blow of the return is lessened knowing it isn’t a rental piece. The Knights got a sure thing for some maybes, even with how good Brannstrom has looked. These are the moves a cup chaser makes, and Vegas has made yet another one. 

The Vegas Golden Knights now figure to deploy a lethal top six that’ll see Marchessault-Karlsson-Smith on the top line with Pacioretty-Stastny-Stone on the second. Tuch, the team’s leading point-getter before the Stone deal, will likely be pushed to the bottom six, which is a great show of scoring depth along all the lines (and that is also without Erik Haula). 

There are obviously going to be concerns about how Stone ages and whether his 8-year contract at such a high AAV is going to look in even 4 or 5 years, but this is just how this team has been built. It has been built on long-term commitment to players, and the Knights were not about to give up longer-term assets for a rental of Stone. Whether it works out in 4 or 5 years will be a concern later, but it is clear the Golden Knights have accelerated their plans of winning it all after their shocking cup run last season and are throwing all the chips in to make sure that happens. 

I really like this deal for both teams overall. Senators got a prime prospect on defense that they could see as the next Erik Karlsson. And they got a decent depth bottom six forward and a nice draft pick for the future. The Knights got a legitimate scorer that has a chance to be even better on a line with Stastny and Pacioretty on a winning team. 

Both teams got exactly what they wanted out of the deal, so it is very hard to complain about it from either end. Now we await Mark Stone’s debut with Vegas. 

5 potential breakout players for the Pirates in 2019

As always is and will be the case with the Pirates, they will have to rely on many of their own guys outperforming what they’ve been known to produce in the past to be successful. 

And with such a young team that they boast, there are quite a few who could be destined for breakout campaigns. I will look at five of these such cases. 

Erik Gonzalez:

Gonzalez was acquired early in the offseason from the Indians in a move that not only cleared some 40-man roster space for the Pirates, but also provided them with at least a decent player. Gonzalez was nothing special in Cleveland, struggling with the bat but playing great defense as a utility player. 

But it is easy to see why a part-time player may struggle, especially at the plate. That rhythm is thrown off only playing off and on. With the Pirates, however, he is expected to at least get the first crack at stealing the starting shortstop position. Perhaps he pulls off a breakout campaign similar to what Josh Harrison did when he was given a starting role in 2014. Erik Gonzalez could be that guy. 

Joe Musgrove:

Musgrove has always had the pedigree to be a top flight pitcher. The Astros always had visions of that when he was one of their top prospects for a couple of years. But after a tough first stint in the majors, they decided to ship him to Pittsburgh last year in the Gerrit Cole trade.

Last season, Musgrove showed off a bit of that potential. He wasn’t a top of the rotation guy by any stretch, but he did some notable things. The one downside was that he was hurt a lot and didn’t get any chance to really get into any real rhythm himself. 

If he is healthy and gets an opportunity to get in his groove, he could very easily take that next step with the quality of his repertoire of pitches and how he uses them. He has a very fiery competitive spirit about him as well and there’s a certain edge to him, which draws comparisons to AJ Burnett. He has that particular mound presence that could help make him special. 

Colin Moran:

Let’s talk about the other main piece of the Gerrit Cole trade: Colin Moran. Moran has always been seen as a guy who could hit a bit but not play defense too well. He lived up to that in 2018. Though, he didn’t hit as well as people thought, but he did come on very well late. 

That late-season surge at the plate for him should instill major confidence in him going into this season, which will provide him the motivation to push ahead further. 

If he can carryover his success and drive from the end of last year into this year, he could easily be one of the team’s better hitters this year. As for the defense, I don’t know if that’ll ever not be the weak point for him. 

Kyle Crick:

The Pirates acquired Crick in the Andrew McCutchen trade last season, and he put together a very strong showing for them last season. The question is whether he can repeat it or even do better, as relievers can be very volatile. 

Crick possesses all the tools necessary to be a consistently awesome reliever, but it has to be recognized that he can even still grow immensely. With a few minor improvements, I think Crick would be a great compliment to the filthy backend of the bullpen of Kela and Vazquez. If Crick steps up, that 1-2-3 punch could be amongst the scariest to face in all of baseball. 

Josh Bell:

I’m not sure there’s a potential breakout player more important than Josh Bell to the Pirates success. The 26-year old has seen two different seasons offensively, one where he hit fit more power, and one where he was more of an on-base guy. Both seasons qualified him as an above average hitter as far as metrics are concerned, but he still has failed to put it all together. 

If he is able to hone in both parts of his ability at the plate that he’s shown the last two years, he can definitely be a potential breakout player for the Pirates. His ceiling is very high if he does. Bell will feel the pressure coming on him as another season of just the same old from the last couple of years may put him on the hot seat with Will Craig gaining momentum as a more legitimate prospect as he moves up the minor league ladder. 

Some things I said for Moran can apply to Bell as well, particularly the defense. Bell showed improvement in 2017 but was not really good there last season. At a position as important as 1st base, he has to clean that up. This is especially true since Will Craig was seen as one of the best defenders at 1B at his level in the minors. 

Bell is poised for a breakout season if he can just polish his game a bit because the talent is certainly there for him to reach his ceiling. 

For the Pirates to be successful, they need some of these players to breakout. If they do not, the Pirates will just be stuck in the sand again. For any of these players, there are reasons to believe they will breakout, but there are plenty of obstacles as well. I guess we will find out once the games begin.