Brassard for Zibanejad was a good trade for Ottawa if you understand the reality of the team at the time. It's only not a good trade if you live in the fantasy world where Zibanejad wouldn't have just been traded for a late 1st and a few small plusses as a pending UFA.
The issue shouldn't be with the trade itself. The issue should be with the ownership conditions that made it a good trade for Ottawa.
Zibanejad and Brassard had the same number of years of team control remaining. Brassard was cost controlled at a 3.33M real money AAV (3M/3.5M/3.5M). Brassard was disappointing when he came to Ottawa, but based on his time in New York he was the better player at the time and was more consistent than Zibanejad. That doesn't account for Brassard being a veteran and Zib' very much still being a young player who was learning what it took compete wise.
That trade got Ottawa:
- More salary space to load up the team under Melnyk's budget.
- Cost control since Brassard was already signed.
- A much better return on Brassard than they would have gotten on Zibanejad, because his low base salary made third party retention possible.
It was a good trade for Ottawa. The fact that it was a good trade for Ottawa is what should upset people. The only reason it was a good trade for Ottawa was because the limitations of ownership meant that they were never going to benefit from Zibanejad's longer development curve as a bigger player with some warts, because he was going to be gone anyways, and during the period where they had team control he was going to be a less valuable trade asset than Brassard turned out to be when they sent him to Pittsburgh.
It was A+ asset management by Dorion given the conditions he operated under. The point being, they got what was mostly a lateral move, they improved elsewhere on the team via freeing up budget, and they got more assets for the piece when they moved on. (For reference, Duchene was a 90+ point C and got a 1st, Davidsson, and Abramov. Odds are, Zibanejad gets less than that given he didn't breakout as the 50+ 100 point pace Jagr-lite like player at that point.)