Puck Lists: Who could the Winnipeg Jets land for Jacob Trouba?

So the word is finally on the street that Jacob Trouba requested a trade before the NHL draft last June and that the Jets haven’t fulfilled his request.

The question, then, is what the Jets want in return. And the answer, according to Gary Lawless, is a player of similar age and experience, who is also a right-shot defenseman. In subsequent tweets, Lawless also says Winnipeg wanted to sign Trouba long-term, and that they don’t really want picks or prospects coming back. At first blush you hear that ask and say it is both reasonable and unlikely to help Kevin Cheveldayoff find a taker. Put another way, they want another — as Travis Yost pointed out yesterday — potential No. 1 defenseman to replace the unhappy one they’d be giving up.

So basically what they’re asking for is a defenseman under the age of, say, 23, who can reliably play 20-plus minutes a night, score a decent number of points, and stay under team control for another three or four years.

The thing to remember is that Winnipeg really doesn’t need to make this trade. What’s Trouba gonna do? Sit out for a whole season? Sign an offer sheet? Haha yeah right. No one would offer-sheet anyone for any reason.

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As you might expect, they’re exceedingly hard to find. Anyone who fits that profile is probably someone the other team doesn’t want to give up; probably they like what they have and don’t feel like going grass-is-greener on this. But I got curious as to just how many young defensemen even fit the Trouba profile the Jets are talking about here, statistically speaking.

It’s a really small number.

10. Damon Severson, New Jersey

You can see New Jersey picking up the phone to make this kind of an offer, because Trouba is significantly better than Severson. You can also see Cheveldayoff hanging up so hard his phone explodes.

Severson is a fine young defenseman but it’s tough to see Winnipeg pulling the trigger here simply because he also fell out of favor for a stretch last year and had to play in the AHL for three games. He doesn’t have the international recognition Trouba does — let alone being on Team North America, Severson hasn’t played internationally for Canada since the U-18s in 2012. He plays four fewer minutes per night. He meets the absolute bare-bones definition of U-23 right-shot defenseman with 20-plus points last season.

Hard pass for the Jets.

9. Matthew Dumba, Minnesota

This might be a little more interesting, right up until you realize Minnesota played him less than 17 minutes a night last season and also that he was involved in trade rumors for several months not so long ago.

Could Dumba become a good defenseman in this league? Absolutely. Will he surpass Trouba any time soon, or ever? Almost certainly not. Trouba’s quality right now is what Dumba should aspire to achieve. That’s how big the gap is here. Without knowing what goes on in the room, I can assure you Dumba was not seriously considered for Team North America.

Dumba is only technically in Trouba’s league because they are both in the National Hockey League. In the figurative sense, not so much.

8. Cody Ceci, Ottawa

If the Senators could somehow Winnipeg to take Ceci for Trouba, this would be equivalent to the Lufthansa heist. Ceci is a dramatically overvalued player who more than doubled his career shooting percentage this season en route to 10 goals, a feat he is unlikely to repeat.

He’s signed short and cheap, which might entice the Jets, but other than that, I’d imagine Ottawa would have to throw something else into the mix. And they would and should, because this is Jacob Trouba we’re talking about, but for Ceci? The Jets say no here too.

7. Colton Parayko, St. Louis

Not gonna happen. Parayko is arguably already the best defenseman on his own team, and that team is really good on the blue line. So too is Winnipeg, now that I say it, but hey, no one would trade St. Louis’s blue line straight up for the Jets’.

Parayko offers significantly more value than Trouba right now, let alone two or three years down the road.

6. Justin Faulk, Carolina

Not gonna happen. Carolina rightly loves their guy, part of that incredible young blue line corps that could be dominant. Faulk is better than Trouba, perhaps by a significant margin, but Ron Francis would decline such a one-for-one offer, and rightly so.

5. Dougie Hamilton, Calgary

Not gonna happen in no small part because he already makes a ton of money but also not gonna happen in general. Also because Calgary has in Hamilton their top-pairing D of the future for when Mark Giordano finally breaks down in another year or three.

4. Aaron Ekblad, Florida

I like Trouba a lot but Ekblad is already one of the better defensemen in the league and if Cheveldayoff even asked, it would be him on the receiving end of the most emphatic hang-up in human history.

3. John Klingberg, Dallas

Jim Nill wouldn’t take this call. Like straight up he would screen Cheveldayoff. Click the little “ignore” button so hard he put his finger through his phone.

2. Seth Jones, Columbus

Jarmo Kekalainen would likewise not be at all interested. Maybe if they could trade David Savard instead, because that contract is still really awful, but they literally just traded for Jones like six months ago and then re-signed him long-term.

Again, I feel like a lot of this is just the Jets setting the bar so high that they couldn’t make one of these trades happen even if they wanted to. Which they unequivocally do not.

1. Rasmus Ristolainen, Buffalo

Now this is intriguing!

Trouba is a lot better than Ristolainen. A lot better. Like, a lot lot lot better. But man people think Ristolainen is incredible. If Tim Murray could make this happen, that reputation as one of the very best GMs in the league would be cemented forever. He could trade Jack Eichel for Rickard Rakell and I would still be here saying, “Yeah but Ristolainen-for-Trouba” in his defense.

Ah but wait, Uncle Bob McKenzie says the Sabres wouldn’t part with Ristolainen. Never mind, I guess. No one’s trading for Trouba unless the Jets budge on their ask. Because this is all the defensemen who are even remotely comparable and there’s good reason for one or both sides to be totally disinterested in a one-for-one swap.

BONUS: Hampus Lindholm, Anaheim

Lindholm is already a borderline top-10 defenseman in the NHL and while both are out of contract right now, the fact that he’s a left shot is what kept him out of this comparison. I can’t imagine that would actually be a sticking point for Winnipeg if this trade were to come up, which it won’t. Anaheim would be near-historically foolish to part with a player of Lindholm’s quality.

Fun while all this lasted, though. Can’t wait to see Trouba back playing for Winnipeg by Columbus Day.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.