Five months after the trade was made, the Washington Capitals are the clear winners of the T.J. Oshie for Troy Brouwer (and others) trade by a longshot.

On July 2nd, the Washington Capitals made a major acquisition when they traded forward Troy Brouwer, goaltending prospect Pheonix Copley, and a 2016 third round draft pick to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for T.J. Oshie. At the time, the Caps seemed like the winners because they got the best player in the deal while not giving up too much in terms of value. Surprisingly, there were people who thought that the Blues wouldn’t miss Oshie at all. Five months later, the Caps can say that they are the clear winners in the trade and that the Blues are the clear losers.

The Washington Capitals won the trade for several reasons. For starters, it’s obvious that they got the best player in the deal this season. Oshie has 13 goals so far this season. He’s enjoying the highest goals per game ratio of his career (0.41 as of December 21st). He’s on pace to score 34 goals (33.62 to be precise), which would be a career high and over 50% more than his previous career high of 21 goals. Troy Brouwer, on the other hand, has 14 points in two more games than Brouwer. He’s roughly on pace to match his 2011-2012 season when he scored 33 points in 82 games.

The Washington Capitals also didn’t give up much when they gave up Pheonix Copley. Copley could turn out to be an above average NHL goaltender. That’s not too likely when you look at his AHL numbers (2.57 GAA and .912 save percentage in 12 games). Even if he does become an above average NHL goalie, that’s not going to be for at least another year. It’s debatable whether an above average NHL goalie is more valuable than a first line right wing with two years of control.

What’s not debatable is that Copley had little value with the Washington Capitals. He would be a backup goalie at best with them thanks to Braden Holtby. He wasn’t even going to be a long-term option with goalie prospects Vitek Vanecek and Ilya Samsonov impressing. He might have value with the Blues, but the Washington Capitals dealt from a position where they had a surplus to get a top line right wing. No matter how you slice it, that’s a good trade for the Caps.

The third round pick is the wild card of the trade. That could shift the trade back in the Blues favor if they nail the pick and draft an excellent player with it. However, the odds aren’t in their favor because most third round picks don’t wind up being productive NHL players.

Why the Blues parted with Oshie for such a cheap price is beyond me. It’s hard to believe that they couldn’t have found another deal. The Blues still had three months to make a trade when they traded Oshie to the Washington Caps. Cap space was probably the best thing that the Blues got in the trade. It allowed them to re-sign Vladimir Tarasenko. But why not trade a less productive forward? Why trade a legitimate talent like Oshie for such a cheap price?

Regardless of why the trade happened, the Caps come out looking like the true winners. And one has to question what the Blues were thinking.