J-P

No UFA unless he plays in all our remaining games. It's the rule about having to play in x number of games (80?) in three seasons iirc, otherwise you become UFA.

If I understand it correctly, if we don't increase our cap hit we now have enough space to pay halaks 1.5 mil bonus this year. Combine that with the 1.5 mil saved on Dermott vs Hamonic and that's 3 mil extra next year . Don't watch the leafs so I don't know Dermott, but if he can be a steady defensive LD that's a huge upgrade on Hunt.

Seems a bit underwhelming for Seattle?

Ha ha your presence in this forum says otherwise... Agree of course that live is the real thing, but the time difference makes it pretty much impossible to watch most games live. At least I get to skip the commercials...

Or you need to stream them the day after like I do (also living in Sweden).

Not really. Example: Boeser -> 4th liner or bottom pairing D + 1 or 2 picks Motte -> 2nd round pick Next season Boeser is replaced by Hoglander, ELC or cheap FA. Motte is replaced by Lockwood, ELC or cheap FA. The season after 1-2 of the picks are on the roster + 1-2 players from Abby. Hoglander has a good season but will resign for far less than Boeser and either play top 6 or be an efficient 3rd liner. I realize it might mean difficulties short term, but imo that's how you build a contender over time. Move out the players with high cap hits that aren't difference makers and replace them with cheaper alternatives. (You could argue Motte is a difference maker but not over 3-4 years at the projected cap hit imo.) In my eyes this is what JR & co means when they say we need to get faster and gain cap. And so I'm thinking doing these moves at the deadline rather than off-season will speed up the process as the returns will be more beneficial now. But I'm no GM - which is definitely a good thing - just don't see how keeping all players to achieve missing the playoffs or losing in the first round moves us forward. But of course bigger moves would make more of a difference, I'm not buying that nobody's going to offer something that can't be refused for Miller or Myers or Horvat, let's see what the eastern teams do Monday when the competition starts to load up.

True, but I see it as a mean of clearing cap space. E g. Motte for a pick and a 1 mil player to replace him (instead of signing him to 2.5 mil+), Boeser for a combination of pick/s and cheaper player/s. Hopefully management has a clear plan regarding this. But agree, these moves in themselves aren't moving the needle, still feel though that we could get more now vs the off-season.

Holding on to everyone would be a big mistake imo. At TDL teams overpay and do deals they normally wouldn't, the process is much more rational in the off-season. So extend or trade Motte and deal at least one of Boeser/Myers/Dickinson/Poolman/Hamonic. Garland and Miller I'm ok with keeping if the right deal isn't there. I think we have pretty much zero chance catching Dallas or Predators unless Dallas really bottoms out. So we need to move ahead of both Vegas and Oilers to make it. We control our destiny vs Vegas, but if Oilers win their game in hand they are 5 points up with 21 games left. Not impossible but objectively not likely. If they e.g. go 10-8-4 we need to go e.g. 14-5-2.

Earlier in the season you had a point. While Hunt still has flaws I don't think anyone watching the recent games can argue he's fine as a bottom pairing D. Schenn is good but not part of our contender, if laffs takes on halaks bonus then halak + schenn for TL and a pick is a trade I'd do anytime, maybe even without the pick. Gamble on upside on TL is worth it.

Yes

All flash = he doesn't go into the corners and come away with the puck more oftan than not? Agree he could be a better finisher though. He looked really good in preseason, but for whatever reason has taken a step back this year. Might just be the dreaded sophomore slump (which is a real thing). He did play way better last night though with Bo and Boeser, so part of it is probably that he's not really finding his game with less ice time in the bottom six. Next season will be very telling for him, but I think his drive and talent will make him at least a middle six mainstay and his ceiling is much higher than that. Regardless he's not a player you trade while on an ELC, and unless he really explodes next season there's a good chance we can sign him at a cap level where he'll be a valuable contributor for years to come.

Lamm has a way better shot though vs Motte which evens out their offensive potential a bit. He also has a way of creating chances out of nothing by being smart and in the right place. No need to pit them against each other of course, both are awesome.

While Miller was great in the O zone last game and had 4 points, he also had 2-3 brutal giveaways in the D zone, one of which he followed up by taking a penalty and stop playing even though the play continued. Not bashing him, he's a great player and plays with that swagger that great players have right now, but these are just facts. Guess he's a polarizing player.

No reason he'd sign under e.g. 58 mil which he'll easily get on the open market, e.g. 7x8.25. 8.5x5 is 15 mil less, why would he do that? Would you?

Not enough insight on the pens players to determine if that's fair or not, but Marino seems like a good fit for us and Boeser is a perfect fit for the Pens top 6 short term.

Was watching the stats for Oilers TOI last game when they lost against Calgary. Pretty brutal. 8 players 20-25 minutes, 2 players 15-20 mins, the rest around or below 10 mins. That's desperate. Compare with the TOI our last game if you will. Unfortunately this observation doesn't get us any nearer the playoffs, I agree with previous posters that unless we find another gear we'll have to beat out Vegas which seems like a bad bet (pun intended), but still feels good to see Oilers really stinking it. Interesting though that Broberg is one of the players with 20+ mins.

We should trade Myers for him (and let PK walk after the season) and let Hamonic play with OEL + gain 6 mil in cap for next season! (Not sure how we'll replace Myers though...)

Not really understanding where this consensus that teams won't pay up for JT are coming from. What are they going to say - sure we'll happily trade a 1st and a top prospect and a good player? Just posturing. The deadline is 2 weeks away, that's an eternity from now, and the perspective will be different once one or more of Rakell, Chychrun, Klingberg, Giroux, Kessel etc. are moved. Especially eastern teams like PIT, BOS, FLA and NYR will look for that extra advantage.The rumoured pool of available players are also pretty thin which should work to our advantage. I wouldn't bet on JT being moved at this TDL, but I would be surprised if all of Horvat/Garland/Myers/JT/Boeser are still here after it. Motte, Schenn and Hamonic are also players that could be moved under the right circumstances.

I don't think management wants to give Boeser his QO. So if an extension isn't signed by TDL I don't really see any other way. I don't think Boeser brings enough scoring and/or value for 6 mil either, so even though I like him as a person I would be fine for trading him for a lesser player (defensive LD or winger maybe) with a lesser cap hit to gain cap space (I know others disagree which is fine). We would likely have to pay to trade Dickinson as a cap dump, if not I agree he should go. OEL is more complex. He would leave a huge hole and immediately expose QH, Hunt and Myers more if not replaced, and though he has been good and could bring much more offensively with other deployment I don't see many takers for his contract and cap hit.

OMG that's pretty brutal, almost felt sorry for him there for a second. Then I thought to myself: McDiver + Keith + Kane + still no goalie or defense, and then I smiled again. Edit: the arrogance to the reporter when he answered "we're back on that" is really something btw, I get that he doesn't like losing and that he's heard the question before (for good reason), but still, that is not captain material and his whole demeanor doesn't exactly give an impression of fighting spirit.

Well, if that offer was on the table it's one of the times I'm glad they're making the decision and not me as it's a tough one. I get what you're saying and the risk would be huge but a trade like that also has the potential to move us from pretender to contender in a year or two. As well as we're playing now, we're still nowhere near being a contender with JT on the team and need both QH and EP to take the next step + fill out holes on the roster.

Good point. I'm torn regarding trading Miller, but maybe it's resolving itself as he might me pricing himself out of reasonable trade offers. I don't see JT being the no 1 guy on this team when we contend, but that's fine as that should be QH/EP/Demko anyway. Whether he wants to stay or not is of course an issue, but another one is that we have to clear cap to move forward. So if it's not JT at least one of Boeser, Horvat and Myers need to go. Would never have guessed it before but right now a likely scenario would be Boeser traded at the deadline and Horvat this summer. This could change of course if Horvat finds his game again.

Hijacking as the question was intended for another poster, but I personally believe the reported asking price of Laff/Kakko, Schneider and a 1st is the cost. Laff obviously has more value. For this to work I guess we'd be open to include Motte and Schenn and take something else back as well. I don't think it's a very likely trade, but I do think it's where the price is at and if the Rangers really believe they have a shot this year it does make some sense.

True. We need to win like 2 out of 3 the rest of the way while 1-2 of the other teams can't go much better than .500. It can happen but it's not something I would bet on. Earlier in the season I expected both LA and Ducks to falter, but that hasn't happened with LA. Looking at the schedule LA and Vegas has schedules easier or equal vs ours. Nashville and Dallas have tougher schedules. And as an example of what the games at hand mean, even though we play Vegas 3 times we would have to win all 3 to get even with them. And I haven't even mentioned that we need to beat out the Oilers as well. So I think the reality is we need to go .700 and even that is no guarantee as we still need 2 teams (if we include Edmonton) to play well below their previous point percentage. Another aspect is whether one believes that wins like the last one vs Leafs is a sustainable pattern. I do not, the bounces have a way of evening out over time. I believe we are good enough to be a wild card team (i.e. without our bad start to the season) but not good enough to win over .700 for a 25 game stretch. Of course I hope I'm wrong and we go on a cinderella run, but again, rational thinking says it's a longshot.

Tbh, I'm not sure we're a top team in any sense at any point right now. We do have the goaltender and we do have stretches within games when we play really well, but that's still on a level below the top teams in the league. For the first half of last game against the flames, they were clearly the better team and outplayed us. Most of our games against teams above us in the standing look like that. Nothing wrong with any of this, we're simply not there yet. This year - especially considering the bad start - has been a step forward and if we continue to improve and tweak our roster without sacrificing picks the future looks good.