Quoting: gavinray
JBD and Hamonic aren't NHL caliber at this point and Benning gives us a solid 3RD for a few seasons at a good cap hit.
Yeah Benning's contract is good and a "safe place" for 3 years. However we need to be competitive for way more than 3 years, we just went through a painful and long 6 years scorched earth rebuild. Benning turns 30 y/o this season.
In this trade, you basically give up Kubalik (probably worth a 2nd at the deadline), a 3rd AND JBD (to another team) for a guy that most likely won't be worth re-signing after 3 seasons
Agreed that Hamonic is barely NHL level now, he looked "ok" last season because he played with an elite D-man in the making (Sanderson) but on his own, he's just not very good at moving the puck and is an adventure just defending. However, like many, you are underrating JBD. He's actually on the development curve of becoming a Matthew Benning, "
at his best when he does not try to do too much and he limits his mistakes, since he is not especially strong in any one area"
These guys are not flashy, it looks like they are not that good because you don't notice them but they are the type of D-men who keep it simple and end up doing their job, which is to keep the puck out of their net.
From 2020-21 to 2021-22, JBD only played 32 NHL games but among the 22 Sens D-men who played on the team, he ranks 4th best xGA/60 (only Kleven, Heatherington and Reilly were higher, also small sample sizes) and the 2nd best GA/60 (only Larsson had a better one but only 8 games). There's literally 1 more goal allowed per 60 when hamonic is on the ice (2.13 vs 3.13). And you have to note that JBD was 20 to 22 y/o during that time, not even fully NHL ready
So this is the only stat that matters for JBD, GA and xGA