St. James on Athanasiou the ‘trading chip’

Earlier this morning, MLive’s Ansar Khan addressed Andreas Athanasiou’s trade value as part of a Monday mailbag feature. This afternoon, the Free Press’s Helene St. James addresses the same topic:

It would not be surprising to see the Wings trade Athanasiou. If they get a good offer – at least a second-round pick or a good prospect, preferably a defenseman – he could be flipped to help the rebuild.

As talented as Athanasiou is, he shouldn’t be as quiet as he is at times – last season he went for stretches of 10 and 15 games without a goal. That came even as he averaged 15:19 minutes per game, up from 13:28 in 2016-17. His average power play time increased to 1:44 from 1:13, yet he contributed only four points during man advantages.

Once restricted free agents Dylan Larkin and Anthony Mantha are re-signed, the Wings will have 12 forwards towards the 2018-19 roster: Athanasiou, Henrik Zetterberg, Frans Nielsen, Gustav Nyquist, Justin Abdelkader, Darren Helm, Thomas Vanek, Luke Glendening, Tyler Bertuzzi and Martin Frk. Michael Rasmussen, the team’s first-round pick from 2017, is expected to grab a job, and June’s draft added the possibility there’ll be another fresh face in Filip Zadina. Other forward prospects expected to challenge for minutes include 2015 first-round pick Evgeny Svechnikov, and David Pope, a shooter dating to the 2013 draft.

That makes for a crowded field, though injuries crop up during training camp/exhibition season. Svechnikov and Pope may end up starting the season in Grand Rapids, but if they perform well, they should be called up.

Continued

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, when MLive hired me to work their SlapShots blog, and I joined Kukla's Korner in 2011 as The Malik Report. I'm starting The Malik Report as a stand-alone site, hoping that having my readers fund the website is indeed the way to go to build a better community and create better content.

4 thoughts on “St. James on Athanasiou the ‘trading chip’”

  1. HSJ should stick to giving us fluff and not try to visualize trades. Her suggestion of AA for a 2nd is really dumb. Last year she proposed trading Howard for Anti Neimi. Neimi was having trouble stopping beach balls at the time. A grade A prospect or a mid 1st round choice makes much more sense. Tats got us a 1,2 & 3rd rounder. A second rounder has approximately a 35% chance of even making the NHL, let alone being a 20 goal scorer.

    1. Yea, I was thinking the same thing when I read the article. Trading AA for a draft pick(s) would have to include a 1st rounder.

  2. Trading Anthanasiou would simply be revenge for last year’s nonsense. While it would make Holland, the senile and mini-Mike feel good, who really cares about that?

  3. Well, she always had a hatred for Tatar and Nyquist.. Perhaps AA is taking Tatar’s spot in her eyes.

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