Pierre Dorion sounds off on Alex DeBrincat trade

By now, you've heard that the Detroit Red Wings have acquired two-time 40 goal scoring forward Alex DeBrincat, bringing a native son home. The trade was completed earlier tonight with the Ottawa Senators as Dominik Kubalik, Donovan Sebrango, and a conditional 1st round pick and a 4th round pick in 2024 moved to the Canadian capital city. 

It brought to an end the DeBrincat saga that began with being acquired last offseason, but a subsequent rejection of a long term deal. The writing was on the wall that there was no way he was going to be staying long term with the Senators, and now the page has been turned. 

As far as the return from Detroit is concerned, Dorion says it was the best he could do. 

“I don’t look at it as the price we paid versus what we got in return because the situations are totally different,” Dorion said on TSN1200 Tuesday morning. “One guy was two years out from UFA, when we acquired him, and he gave us a good year of hockey.

“A lot of things could have gone a bit differently for us, a bit better luck with injuries. Maybe we make the playoffs and people don’t look at it that way. We got a pretty good player for a year and we feel we maximized our return. Let’s look in 3-5 years if that player we take in the first round is better than the player we would’ve taken at No. 7.”

It became obvious even from DeBrincat's body language that Dorion could see that an extension with Ottawa was off the table.

“It was always our goal to sign Alex long term. We talked to him at training camp and [his team] said ‘let’s see how he likes it’,” said Dorion. “About halfway through the year we reached out to them and they said ‘We thought your team would be a bit better from the start of the year.’

“Alex’s body language in the exit interview told me enough. Being around a long time, I told [head coach D.J. Smith] ‘he doesn’t want to be here’. When I got back from the World Championships his agent called me and said ‘we’re not going to sign long-term with you guys.”

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