Transcript of Instant Analysis - Cam Fowler Traded to St. Louis Blues

Cam Fowler, you are a Saint Louis blue. So, like, what does that mean now? Let's break it down. Okay. So the official trade is Cam Fowler to the blues for a 2027 second round pick, and noted Alan Walsh client, Jeremy Byakkapatuka.

It's a great last name, and there's more on him a little bit later. Anaheim is also gonna retain 2,500,000 of Fowler's salary. So he's in the 7th year of an 8 year deal, $52,000,000. It's 6,500,000 per year. So the cap hit for the Blues is only 4 mil.

Not bad. Now this is the end of an error for Anaheim fans. Cam Fowler has played 15 seasons with the Ducks. 15. He's only 33 years old, and it it just feels like he's been around forever.

This guy was drafted 12th overall by the Ducks in 2010, and a couple months later actually made that team, which is pretty impressive because the Ducks were actually really, really good back then. And it's kinda sad that actually he got traded right now because he was 9 games shy of playing his 1000th game with the Ducks. And it kinda makes me wonder, like, why couldn't you just wait for game 1,000, Pat Verbiq? Come on. But because he's playing with the Blues now, his 1000th game will be the outdoor game that the blues are playing.

That's pretty cool. Still, 991 games with 1 team? That's pretty ridiculous. Here's how long Cam Fowler has been a doc. Are you ready for this?

This season he started playing with them, 2010, 2011. Taimu Solani had 80 points. Taimu Solani, you know, the guy that scored 76 goals in the nineties? Yeah. Corey Perry won the Hart Trophy that year.

Randy Carlisle was still their head coach. That's pre Leaf, Randy Carlisle. Pre Toronto Maple Leaf Randy Carlyle. Wow. Also for Leaf fans, here's a fun 1.

Francois Beauchampagne had just been traded back to the Ducks and instantly became good again. Dark times. Very dark times. We made it. We made it through.

So first thing I think we need to get off the table is whatever models, like, analytically, statistically that you've looked at online that kinda profile Cam Fowler, the results are probably bad. You'll be shocked to know that just about every Ducks defenseman for the last half decade has looked horrible. Could it be because the Ducks have been bad for half a decade? Listen. I don't wanna point out the obvious, but analytics are supposed to show us when a player is good on a bad team or when a player is bad on a good team.

And the reality is the publicly available ones don't always do that. The ones the teams have, far superior. I'm gonna give you an example of this. When Simon Benoit, who was a Duck, who played with Cam Fowler in 22, 23, when he was playing with him, played mostly top line minutes because Cam Fowler was their top defenseman, And he was considered statistically the worst defenseman in the league according to publicly available advanced stats. And he's turned into a perfectly good top 6 guy for the Leafs.

So what does that say about Cam Fowler? And we're seeing a lot of teams' best forwards every night. And remember, for the last few years until the last couple, he's not had the best goaltending. And the Ducks are bad at pretty much everything, so his numbers don't look great. If you look at his hockey DB, you'll be pleasantly surprised to note that he actually usually plays 60 to 70 games, including 81 and 82 the last 2 seasons, and he scores somewhere between 30 40 points, which for basic stats, really good for a defenseman, especially on a team like the Ducks that can't do anything.

Again, don't look at his plus minus. It's not pleasant. It just tells you the Ducks have been bad, and they've been bad for a while. We all kinda know that. Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said today, after meeting with Cam several times over the last few months, it's become clear to both of us that it was time for a change.

As usual, Cam handled the process with professionalism and remained committed to the Ducks. Cam and his family deserve nothing but the best going forward, and we wish them the best of luck. So at least it ended on good terms. It was a great run. 15 seasons.

Come on. So if you're a Blues fan, you're wondering, what is Cam Paolo now? Well, he was still playing top line minutes for the Ducks up until he got injured in an upper body injury this year. He just got back, played 5 games, was logged in over 25 minutes a game, but, he had lost his spot on both power plays, which was sort of his bread and butter. Owen Zellweger and Jackson Lacombe kinda taking those spots.

He had been playing power play for the last 5 games that he was with the Ducks, but that was more just as a showcase to other teams to show, yeah, he can still do this. And listen. The guy can still skate, and he can still move the puck, and that's gonna be important in St. Louis. But we'll get to the blues in a second.

It's also important to note that he's not like some big monster physical presence. He's more of a position stick guy. Blues are used to being big and scary on defense, but things have changed a little bit there lately. Not so sure about that anymore. He might fit this new system with Jim Montgomery.

And the question is, what does Jim Montgomery want him to do? Because in Anaheim, he basically had to do everything, and I don't think that's gonna be the case in St. Louis. For Blues fans, you're getting a good left shot defenseman who can move the puck, will probably be a good replacement for Nick Leddy, who I'm thinking is gonna be out longer than we thought. Kinda feels like that's what this is.

And I would assume they're gonna try to pair him with team Canada's Colt Baraco so the Blues can keep Broberg and Faulk together. The Saint Louis defense actually weird, surprisingly old. Fowler is 33. Pareco is 31. Justin Faulk is 32.

Nick Leddy, injured, 33, And Ryan Studer is 39 and sometimes playing like it. But this is clearly a move and a decor that is, I think, for management, expecting to make the playoffs. Why else would you need all that experience? Right? You got a bunch of guys in their thirties.

You're expecting to get in. Here's the problem though. Currently, the Blues have 30 points, which is 4 out of a playoff spot. Not impossible, but there's some things that they're gonna have to do if they wanna make up that gap. The first thing is exactly what Cam Fowler brings.

Puck moving and offense. He's gonna help guys like Jordan Kyrieu and Robert Thomas get back on track. They're leading the team in points, but Kyrieu's got 25 and Robert Thomas has 20. That is not good enough. The thing is the Blues have only scored 80 goals this year, which is not great through 27, 28 games.

We're talking about a team that is tied for 6th last in the NHL in goals 4, and they're tied with the Montreal Canadians who respectfully are in a different phase of development. And I don't think Habs fans are thrilled with how things are going there either. And they expected them to not be that good. Right? That is not where the Saint Louis Blues need to be.

They've got better talent than this. Cam Fowler helps with that. Doug Armstrong, Blues GM, made a big splash this summer. We all remember August, Roebuck, Holloway, sealing them from Edmonton, RFAs. He's not afraid to be bull.

And, honestly, this is bull, But he's gotta get more done up front, and I feel like he's gonna get on that sooner rather than later. Now that team Canada's all wrapped up, I feel like Doug Armstrong's gonna be like, I need to add, and I need to add now. The blues want to make the playoffs this year. They're gonna do something. Bucs fans, I think this trade is just more trade capital.

Whether this pick or another 1 goes out the door because they have this pick, a 2027 second rounder is currently 15 years old. So they wouldn't likely be ready for the NHL for, like, another half decade if they made the NHL at all, and lots of second round picks don't. I would expect the Ducks to take, the good young core that they have, which, you know, Carlson, Lacombe, Mitcheloff, Dostol. There's more there and add some vets to it. Some real, but not like old vets.

I'm talking about guys in their late twenties. I think this team could be pretty good pretty quickly. Once you have goal tending figured out, you got a lot of your problems solved. Dostol seems like the real deal. I know they've still got John Gibson's cap hit hitting, sticking around for another couple years, but, like, still, I feel like there's a ton the Ducks can do.

Now they're obviously operating under an internal salary cap. The Samueli is the owners, great owners, but they always do this when the Ducks aren't making the playoffs or don't expect to. They're gonna spend less than what the cap is. That's just the way it is. And when Jake Truba came to town and brought all of his $8,000,000 with him, even though it's 6,000,000 in real dollars, you knew some money had to come off the books, and $4,000,000 just did.

But that 2027 second round picks gives them an opportunity to turn that into a valuable player as a part of a trade down the road. With the emergence of Doestal, it's time for the Ducks to kinda really start looking at the now. And I wonder when Trevor Zegrus comes back for his injury because he's supposed to be somewhere in the neighborhood of, like, 6 weeks, if he comes back and stays or if he comes back and moves and what that return looks like. There's a lot of moving pieces for Pat Verbeek with the Ducks. As for the other player in this trade, Jeremy Byakobatuka, he's, more of a stay at home defenseman who did put up some decent numbers in the ECHL with the Orlando Solar Bears.

He's only played 1 game at the AHL level in Springfield this year, but he could be a late bloomer. You never know. 1 of those guys drafted in that weird 2020 draft zone that probably had their development stunted a little bit by the pandemic. So you expect them to come along, but maybe take a little bit longer to do it. 2 things you should know, though.

First, and I mentioned this earlier, Iacobatuka is a noted Alan Walsh client, so that ultimately makes him a 10 out of 10. Number 2, his uncle is Tim Byakobatuka who played 6 seasons at Ursa running back for the Carolina Panthers in the early 2000, and he was really good. He was also a really good video game player, and I used to trade for him in, like, Madden 2000 and Madden 2001. Also spent some time in Canada. Born in the Congo, came to Canada, then made the NFL, and I always thought that was really cool because there was, like, no Canadians in the NFL at that point.

Also interesting with the Saint Louis Blues, Brandon Saad was scratched today, and it looks like they're trying to move him. And this guy is a rugged penalty killer. He's in the last year of his deal. He's won Stanley Cups, was a big part of those Stanley Cups with Chicago. You have to think that somebody's gonna want him.

What are the Blues gonna try to get back for him? They probably want his money out so they can use his money to get some more scoring up front. So we'll see what happens there. So Cam Fowler, St. Louis Blues.

It's gonna be super weird not seeing him in those really scary, ugly Dux jerseys. I'm sorry. I just can't get on board with them. Blues fans, are you excited about Fowler? How do you see him fitting in?

Is he exactly what the Blues need, or is he like a stop gap? And Ducks fans, I'm gonna ask you a different question. What's your favorite Cam Fowler memory? The guy played 991 games with the Ducks. I think got all the way through to the conference final 1 year.

I know it's been a while since the Ducks have been in the playoffs, but there are some good memories there. And that guy was a spectacular offensive defenseman on a spectacular defensive core for a long, long time. What is your favorite Cam Fowler memory? Write it in the comments here, and thank you so much for watching. Click like.

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