Hershey was not spared from the flurry of moves the Washington Capitals made in the last 48 hours before the trade deadline.

While the late acquisitions of Timothy Liljegren and David Kampf filled the holes left by the trades that sent Nic Dowd to Vegas and Capitals legend John Carlson to Anaheim seemed to make sure the Bears roster was set in stone for the remainder of the season, a late deal with the Ottawa Senators made sure that wasn’t the case.

The Capitals sent winger Graeme Clarke to Ottawa, where he will report to Belleville, for Wyatt Bongiovanni, winger/center, who has reported to Hershey. Bongiovanni currently has 25 points in 54 games for Belleville this season, with 12 goals and 13 assists to his name. That gives him one more point than Clarke in slightly more games this season.

Why This Trade Works for Hershey

There are a few reasons this trade works well for Hershey specifically, at least in my opinion, that I’m going to list out here.

1. The Bears needed a center: Now this one seems obvious, because every team it seems like needs a center. But with Spencer Smallman and Eriks Mateiko, two skaters who could play center, out for the season due to injury, Hershey has specifically been lacking center depth. With Henrik Rybinski also having been out for the last few games, though he’s due to return soon it seems, Brett Leason has stepped up as the second line center in a pinch. While Brett has done an excellent job, that’s not his best position. By acquiring Bongiovanni, who can play both at center and on the wing, it provides Hershey with more center depth and positional flexibility heading into the playoff push.
2. The emergence of Alex Suzdalev and addition of Sonny Milano: This is a twofold thing that I think hurt Clarke here majorly. The first was Sonny Milano coming down from Washington, and with the trade deadline gone and Milano still here in Hershey, that seems to be a permanent addition for the rest of the season. Milano, as he’s shown in his first four games with the Bears, is a more talented player, and his arrival knocks Clarke out of any real contention for the top six. What also hurt Clarke has been the emergence of Alex Suzdalev over the last month of hockey. Since February 7, Suzdalev has 8 points in his last 9 games played for the Bears, and really showed out earlier this week, with three goals across the two games against Charlotte. And with Suzdalev as a developing, recently turned 22-year-old, the more he shows in games, the more opportunities he gets. And moving on from Clarke opens up more consistent opportunities for Suzdalev. This also leads me directly into point number three.
3. Clarke was never consistent: The big knock on this trade that fans seem to have is because of Clarke’s 15 goals this season, which places him as second on the team only behind Ilya Protas. However, if you look a little deeper, you can see how concerns about his consistency have sprouted up. Clarke has three multi-goal games this year, where he scored twice, three time, and twice again respectively. That would be three games of his 50 played so far this season where he scored almost half of his goals this season. In the other 47 games played by Clarke this year, he only has seven goals and eight assists for 15 points. When Clarke got hot in a game it was undeniably fun to watch. But the fact is Hershey has not seen that from Clarke enough this season, and his weaknesses in the defensive zone this year have seen him be a healthy scratch on occasion where he seemed to get in Derek King’s dog house for poor defensive effort. If you do the same for Bongiovanni, you would take out only one multi-goal game, which would still leave him with 10 goals and 13 assists in his remaining 53 games. That is not elite level production, but it is more consistent production than what Clarke was giving Hershey.

To me these are the reasons why I think Hershey comes out the winner in this trade. They get a player that fills a positional lead, has a better 200 foot game, and has shown more consistency in offensive production this season. That’s what a team needs to make a playoff push, and I could see Hershey lining up like this once Rybinski is healthy:

Miroshnichenko-Protas-Trineyev

Cristall-Bongiovanni-Milano

Suzdalev-Rybinski-Leason

Strome-Cruikshank-Bitten

That’s a fun group of forwards that I think could push for a strong playoff run. This trade excites me and makes the Bears better in my eyes as they prep for the playoff push.