Havelid for Salmela?

I'm sure you've all heard about the trade sending Havelid to the Devils. I'm not here to report on that but I do want to talk about this Salmela kid. Here are some of the basics.



Age: 24
Place of Birth: Nokia, Finland
HT: 5-11 WT: 190
Shoots: L

Now in looking at this the first thing that concerns me is his size. He's not very big for an NHL defenseman. Then again neither is Enstrom. Seeing how he is 24 he's obviously not going to get any bigger. Sure he could put on some weight but I can't imagine he'll put on much more. Word is he has a lot of offensive upside and should net more points than Havelid. He did have 16-16 for 32 points in 2007-2008 so that's encouraging. From what I've read he plays a very physical style of D and has good speed and hands. Now I'm all for having a young mobile defensive unit. I think in todays NHL you have to have good puck moving defenseman. The offense starts from the back end and if you can move the puck out of the zone quick then you'll get a lot of chances to score. All in all I think we did ok with this trade. We lost probably our most solid D man but he was 35 and a UFA this summer. In return we get a 24 year old kid who is NHL ready and might be able to help us now and not 2-3 years from now. Obviously the jury is still out but as of now I'd have to say I like it.