The Value Of Grit

The Winnipeg Jets, in their annual trade deadline "grit" acquisition, made an unexpected move today by sending a 2021 conditional fourth-round draft pick to the Vegas Golden Knights for Winnipeg-born centerman Cody Eakin. While the Jets are seemingly always on the look for guys that are "good in the room" and can bring "sandpaper" to the lineup, I don't know if Cody Eakin was even on their radar before today. Nevertheless, the Jets get a third-line centerman to help their efforts in making the playoffs this season for a pick that has a low probability to turning into a bonafide NHL star.

Before I break down the trade, the conditions for the draft pick see the 2021 fourth-round pick upgraded to a 2021 third-round pick if Winnipeg makes the 2019-20 playoffs or if the Jets re-sign Eakin before July 5th, 2020. With the Jets currently sitting in the first wild card position, there's no guarantee they'll make the playoffs at this point, but it seems that general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff isn't worried about either pick in 2021 to make this deal. If the Jets were looking at making any other improvements, that 2021 third-round pick is now off the board being that it has to be available to fulfill the conditions of this trade.

I've seen some people on social media point to Eakin's 22 goals and 19 assists in 2018-19 as a reason for the Jets "fleecing" the Golden Knights on this deal, and I've got to throw up a stop sign there because there are a few significant details that one is overlooking in that season. The first would be some guy named Max Pacioretty and the second would be Alex Tuch. Those were his linemates for nearly 20% of the season in 2018-19, and he amassed a pile of points playing in between those two players. In saying that, those career-year numbers that Eakin put up are more aberrations than norms when it comes to Eakin's scoring prowess.

Can he score? Yes, as proven by the numbers. Can he drive a line on his own? That doesn't appear to be the case.

Instead, the Jets are looking at the underlying numbers as Eakin gives them a second Adam Lowry-like player in that Eakin wins face-offs, blocks shots, and can play physical. Since Lowry's injury, the Jets haven't had a guy that Paul Maurice can roll out to win a key defensive zone face-off like he did with Lowry, so it seems that Eakin will be given that role.

The problem, though, is that Eakin's 49.8% face-off win percentage is better than only Jack Roslovic's 45.0% as all of Nick Shore, Andrew Copp, and Mark Scheifele have better career percentages. In fact, Eakin's 47.4% face-off win percentage this season is the worst of his career, and a full 5% worse than his playoff win percentage totals. Maybe Eakin won't be taking important defensive zone draws unless something changes dramatically over the next couple of weeks?

Ok, so maybe he'll be used on the penalty-killing units where his work in blocking shots will come in handy. As it stands this season, Eakin has 14 blocked which seems to be slightly off his career average of 33 per season, but he trails Andrew Copp (26), Adam Lowry (22), Blake Wheeler (41), Mark Schiefele (44), Jack Roslovic (18), and Nick Shore (17) in blocked shots this season, so it might be hard to justify seeing Eakin on the ice killing penalties when he doesn't do a lot to prevent shots from getting to Hellebuyck compared to the other centermen the Jets have.

This could also be a systemic thing where Gallant wasn't using him in a spot to block shots this season, but that's hard to fathom after he blocked 45 and 35 shots in 2017-18 and 2018-19, respectively. It's fairly clear he has the ability to block shots, so Paul Maurice will be tasked to get Eakin into shooting lanes if this is a skill that the Jets want to exploit. As it stands, however, the rest of the Jets centermen seem to have better results in blocking opposition shots.

With the defensive theories somewhat wrecked, that leaves just physical play as Eakin's one potential quality the Jets may want in the lineup, but even that stretch to put Eakin into the everyday mix seems far-fetched. Eakin's 41 hits rank slightly less than Shore's 50 hits, way behind Gabriel Bourque's 113 hits, and slightly ahead of Logan Shaw's 23 hits. Eakin may be an upgrade over those three players' skill levels on the Jets' fourth line, but the fourth line isn't going out there to be relied upon for goal scoring.

Why would the Jets give up a pick and take another pick off the board for a guy who seemingly makes the Jets no better on the ice than they were before making the deal?

"Cody was someone who really intrigued the coaches from the moment I brought his name up the first time," Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff told reporters. "Cody is the type of guy who just oozes character... tremendous character person, brings guys into the fight."

Where have we heard this before? It seems a player acquired at last year's deadline was one of those "character guys" who was more about experience than on-ice contributions, and would play more fourth-line minutes than anything else. That player was centerman Matt Hendricks. At the time, Maurice said the following about Hendricks: "Are you a person the organization wants other players to follow? Do you have the ability and the skillset that can identify a guy that needs help and reach out, and have the respect of that player? He has all those things here."

While the words used might be different, it seems those two statements made by Cheveldayoff and Maurice share a lot of the same underlying message: "brings guys into the fight", accountability, good in the room. While some will say these intangibles are vitally important to a team, it seems the Jets place an absurdly high value on these traits.

While it's unknown where Eakin will be slotted into the Jets lineup, it seems he may be destined for the same place Hendricks found himself more often than not in centering the fourth line. While Eakin does give the Jets a little flexibility in that he can play both center and on the wing, it might be that Eakin flanks Shore across from Bourque if the Jets want to play more physical, moving Shaw to the press box. Other than that, breaking up any of the top three lines seems unthinkable considering the last few results that the Jets posted, so I'm not sure this move to bring in Eakin adds any sort of tangible improvement overall to the lineup.

At the end of the day, a third-round pick - assuming the Jets hold onto their playoff spot - for a few extra hits out of a fourth-line winger seems like a steep and rather ridiculous price to pay. Welcome to the NHL city where grit is worth its weight in gold.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!