Here’s How The Rangers Got The 2nd Round Pick For Derick Brassard

Per Larry Brooks, there’s an excellent little nugget on the Derick Brassard trade that was just leaked out.

While more than a few Senators fans were shocked the team was willing to part with growing 23-year-old Mika Zibanejad for Brassard, almost everyone was confused as to how Jeff Gorton also pried a valuable second round pick from Ottawa.

Well, wonder no more. From Brooks:

Which is why it is odd that Ottawa general manager Pierre Dorion has felt the need to spin it to make himself and the Senators look better by saying he stalled on the trade long enough so the Rangers would be on the hook for the $2 million bonus owed and paid to Brassard on July 15.

Sources report the Rangers agreed to pay the $2 million only if Ottawa would add a 2018 second-round draft choice into the mix.

So just to confirm the process: Ottawa is cheap — we know this after the Daniel Alfredsson incident — and part of why they probably valued Brassard so much was because his cap hit is higher than the actual salary his new team now owes him.

Sticking with the above, they did not want to pay Brassard’s upcoming bonus, which was owed and paid on July 15th. So Gorton was willing to pay the bonus in the event he got a second round pick as a part of the deal.

Few things here:

A) It’s James Dolan’s money and he has, well, a lot of it. Like, that two million dollars probably came from his couch cushions.

B) The Senators gave away a second round pick, which is incredibly valuable, because they didn’t want to pay a player two million dollars.

C) This is incredibly good business by Gorton and the Rangers -- and the brass gets credit here too because I’m sure waiting until after Brassard was paid had to be signed off on by the powers that be.

D) And I can’t stress this enough: THE SENATORS THOUGHT THIS WAS GOOD BUSINESS!

That’s basically getting a second round pick for NO hockey assets.

Good business indeed. Well, for Mr. Gorton.