At the time Mike Green left the Caps, he had been with the Caps for more than half of my life. When I look back fondly on the Ovechkin era in Washington, he will be one of the players that I think of, along with (obviously) Ovechkin, Backstrom, Holtby, Beagle, Semin, etc.

So believe me when I say, I completely understand why people might say they want this to happen:

But believe me, there is no universe in which this is a sane move.

For starters, the number one complaint about the Caps over the past month has been team defense. The Caps have played well…. brutally…. in their own zone. (This animated heat map is tough to watch).

I don’t think we’re going to solve it with Mike Green.

His Relative Goals For% is negative, which means he’s playing worse than his average teammate. He plays for the Red Wings. Those Red Wings.

Even if he won’t bring a lot of defense, there’s other ways he could potentially contribute. The biggest argument in favor of the trade is revitalizing the Caps abysmal powerplay. And yeah, the Caps powerplay is really bad right now. There’s one problem. There’s only one player on the Red Wings who has been on the ice for fewer PPG’s/60 than Green (of players getting real powerplay minutes). One. The RED WINGS.

And we haven’t gotten into the salary cap implications of a Mike Green trade yet. He carries more than double the Cap hit that Nick Jensen (who is the outgoing player I’ve seen mentioned most in hypothetical Mike Green trade proposals) does. Meaning even if Detroit agreed to retain the highest amount allowed of Green’s salary, the Caps would still be reducing their already astronomically low cap space.

Mike Green will always occupy a special place in our hearts and our memories. But that’s where we need to leave him. Any trade that involves both Mike Green and the Caps is a bad one.