Yotes GM Bill Armstrong comments on the conditional Leafs pick in the Lyubushkin deal
With the dust having settled on the Nick Ritchie trade to Arizona for Ilya Lyubushkin and Ryan Dzingel, it's worth mentioning that we don't often see picks with a condition like the one the Leafs offered up to the Coyotes in the deal.
As incentive to take on the full Nick Ritchie contract ($2.5M this season and next, with an actual salary of $3.3M next season), the Leafs have given the Yotes a choice between their 2023 3rd rounder or their 2025 2nd rounder.
Now, obviously, with only 3 draft picks last year (2nd, 5th and 6th rounders) and only 3 picks again this year (1st, 2nd and 7th rounders), the Leafs didn't want to deal their 2nd this season and didn't have a 3rd rounder this year to offer up, so I loved the creativity from Dubas to put some separation between the choice of picks offered up in the deal, with the incentive being better for the Coyotes to defer to the 2025 2nd rounder because it will be a higher draft pick. But how does Yotes GM Bill Armstrong view things? Well, he isn't opposed to either pick.
Armstrong said on Sunday that if the 2023 draft ends up being deep in the eyes of the scouts, he'll have no problem settling for a 2023 3rd round pick instead of waiting for the 2nd rounder in 2025. Conversely, if the 2023 draft doesn't look particularly strong, the Coyotes will opt to defer to the 2025 pick.
Options are never a bad thing for an NHL GM, and while waiting 2 additional years for a pick could be too long for someone who lacks patience, it could also pay off in a big way for a GM who does practice patience.
I think Armstrong, up to this point, has shown a willingness to be patient and to build his roster the right way. We'll see what the future holds in terms of how the chips will fall with the Leafs pick, but the fact that Armstrong won't lean one way or the other until he has as much Intel as possible bodes well for the Yotes - and meanwhile, the Leafs got their man in Lyubushkin. Everyone is happy.
