It wasn’t that long ago that Pierre-Luc Dubois was being penciled into the Montreal Canadiens’ 2023-24 lineup for Game 1. Instead, the Dubois to Montreal dream is dead after the Los Angeles Kings swooped in with a big offseason splash.
On Tuesday, the Winnipeg Jets sent Dubois to the Kings in a massive sign-and-trade that comes with an eight-year, $68 million extension. The deal comes just over a day removed from the highly-anticipated 2023 NHL Draft, with some major moves already made in the lead up to the event.
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It’s not often we get enormous sign-and-trades like this one in the NHL, especially with how stagnant the salary cap has been. The Kings really went for it by trading for Dubois and his gifted offensive talent, but did they pay too high a price?
With the draft only one day away, let’s take a look at how the Jets and the Kings grade out in this trade for Dubois.
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The details
This one’s a doozy, so let’s get right into it.
- Kings get: F Pierre-Luc Dubois (signed to an eight-year, $68 million deal)
- Jets get: F Gabriel Vilardi, F Alex Iafallo, F Rasmus Kupari, 2024 second-round pick
Los Angeles Kings
Kings grade: C
Dubois is a good hockey player. Pretty great, even. But, right now, Dubois is not an $8.5 million per season player for the next eight years. Good on him for getting his money, but I’m scratching my head trying to figure out why Los Angeles paid a king’s ransom here.
First, the good news for the Kings: Dubois will be a boon for this offense. In 73 games last season, Dubois posted 27 goals and 63 points on a Jets team that was in the back half of league scoring. Surrounded by a more potent offense in Los Angeles, Dubois should succeed in the Kings’ top six.
It is strange, however, that once Anze Kopitar’s final $10 million comes off the books, Dubois will be the Kings’ highest paid player at $8.5 million. Not even Kevin Fiala hits that mark at $7.875 million. Plus, there’s also the concerns about Dubois’ work ethic, given how things ended with Columbus and now Winnipeg. If Dubois doesn’t want to play in Los Angeles after a few years, will we see another low-effort shift like he pulled with the Blue Jackets?
That being said, the eventual rise of the salary cap in 2024-25 might make this deal more palatable down the line. I may end up eating my words with this grade in the future, but the Kings paid a lot for what feels like a more lateral move.
Winnipeg Jets
Jets grade: A-
Even though the Jets gave up the best player in this deal by far, they still win this trade in a landslide. Dubois made it crystal clear that he was moving on from Winnipeg after the 2022-23 season, so to get three players plus a highly-coveted second-round pick is tidy work by Kevin Cheveldayoff.
Vilardi and Iafallo aren’t offensive drivers like Dubois was, but their real strength lies in their two-way play that’s surprisingly better than expected when you look at the numbers.
Alex Iafallo, traded to WPG, is a defence-first winger who kills penalties and doesn't take them. #GoJetsGo pic.twitter.com/OxfA8195dc
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) June 27, 2023
While the loss of Dubois from the Jets offense will be palpable, the real gain here for Winnipeg is in cap space. There was no way the Jets would have been able to afford Dubois at the figure he got and now Winnipeg has nearly $13 million in cap space to work with after this move.
In total, great work here by the Jets to get the maximum amount of return for a player that was as good as gone on July 1.
