DownUndaCanuck

Expansion draft was far too over-powered, they just created two perennial contenders in a heart-beat and both have fairly decent prospect pools so can keep this going for a long time. Nothing about Vegas or Seattle is organic to the way the rest of the teams are built - often in the NHL you have teams go through spells of doing well, then come crashing down as their core gets old, then they draft high picks and go back up the see-saw. Instead, these two expansion teams have solid depth up front because they have other team's 3rd liners as 4th liners, limited top-end star quality (when they drafted, anyway), of course good goaltending and solid deep forward groups - perfectly suited for the playoffs - not to mention good draft picks as well. Teams should have been able to protect more players or...more interestingly...the expansion teams should have been only able to take a player per rostered line. For example, every team submits their lineup roster, gets to pick who to protect, and the expansion team picks one by one a player from the lineup one position/spot at a time. The reason Vegas and Seattle are just dominating is their depth and that's owed to the fact that they just picked a bunch of 2nd and 3rd liners instead of plugs.

People seem to be comparing Bedard to McDavid or Crosby (maybe more Crosby of late although he is quite small), but I'd look at Michkov a bit as a young Kucherov. Obviously there's loads of hype around McDavid and rightly-so, Crosby, but look at what Kucherov has done, especially in the playoffs. He's right up there with the best of the best, and I think that's what's going to happen with Michkov. Kucherov cheekily dropped a 113pt season last year and flew under the radar a bit and I've got a feeling Michkov will be a similar dangerous producer while everyone gets carried away with Bedard.

Exactly. The problem with trading for them is that we're never going to get another team's star top player, and they're going to command far more value than they're worth if we had drafted and developed them ourselves. For example, no chance Detroit give us Seider. You see trades for guys like Chychrun and Provorov going at a 1st and two 2nds and then some, and these guys aren't even exactly top star defencemen, they've almost been given up on by their original team. Another interesting point you make is that we're gunning for the playoffs now and want to clearly build a young core around Petey and Hughes so ideally we should be drafting almost-NHL ready guys. On defence I think that's ASP and especially Reinbacher - both are playing against men and could almost jump into the AHL next year if they don't want to play in Europe. This defence is so thin, they could be playing on the Canucks in a year or two's time.

Big move but not surprised CBJ want to retool and go for it, this is just like the Hronek deal. I think we'll see more and more bottom feeders think they're better than they have performed and be buyers. They had a lot of injuries last year, have star quality all across their lineup and will get a young center who can play in the NHL maybe even next year (Carlsson?), so why not? Werenski, Bean, Provorov and Peeke make a solid top-4. This is all about Gaudreau though, they acquired a star and are trying to build around him and his age. I won't be surprised if they now try to acquire another top-6 forward in free agency too. They really need a top line center so drafting Carlsson helps down the line.

I think wait it out. It'll be interesting to see where we are around the TDL. If we're nowhere near a playoff spot we're in big trouble, but at least we can trade a bunch of our players and retain a bit (eg. trade Myers 50% retained or something to a contender, I bet Toronto would bite). Beauvillier's contract is due to expire too, he'd be a great rental trade, if we retained 50% again he's a bargain. If we're somehow in or near a playoff spot, no need to panic. I think we let Myers walk, we've got to do something with Beauviller otherwise we lose value for nothing, and likely re-sign a bunch of our expiring contracts (eg. Petey and Hronek) with Myers money. OEL is going down with the ship, no questions about it, but if we can bury him on the bottom pairing I have no problems with that - we just need budget guys in our top-4 then. We've got Hughes and Hronek who are great, but we need two more guys to make it work long-term. Our cap situation isn't going to be great in a year though - Myers 6M out, Beauvillier 4M expiring, we'll need to give Petey a 3-4M raise, Hronek probably a 1-2M raise, Podkolzin will probably have a big year and deserve a raise, Joshua and Aman will be due a contract as well, it'll be tight for sure.

We very clearly can't trade for an RD without spending top dollar so I agree - we've got to draft and develop one (and not in the 3-7th round). We just blew a 1st and 2nd on Hronek and each of those picks could have been a future top-4 defenceman in their own rights (eg. Strbak and Willander/Lindstein), so it's time to get serious, scout, draft and develop our own guys. I'd take ASP, Reinbacher or even Willander (Button seems to rate him quite highly and he looked like he carried the pairing at the WJC). I'd only consider taking a forward over a defenceman if there's someone like Dvorsky or Benson still available. No time for Wood/Barlow/Danielson etc., think they're all a bit over-hyped and bottom line is we need defencemen and centers. I get the BPA idea but look at where it's gotten our team - we can't seem to make a trade in today's NHL anymore, so BPA doesn't matter if all the players are quite equal. BPA has gotten us an imbalanced team full of random wingers, on the team and in the pipeline (Podkozlin, Hoglander) and zero defencemen down the future.

If this is the case, we have to target a top-4 defenceman and add a sweetener like Rathbone or a good pick or even Woo. I'd be thinking Marcus Pettersson, Peeke, Hanifin, Alexeyev. All those teams (and plenty more) want young scorers. As much as I love Brock and think he's going to explode next year, he's our best trading chip to acquire a top-4 defenceman. I'd attach Rathbone to acquire one of the better guys (Hanifin or Petey). There's a lot of desperate teams out there who missed the playoffs or got bounced because of a lack of scoring - in particular NYR, Washington, Pittsburgh, Calgary, and they all have decent young-ish top-4 defencemen. If they want a Garland or Beauvillier, great, but Boeser has a touch of star quality which I think you have to give up to acquire a decent top-4 guy. Honestly I'd even retain a mil or so on Boeser to make it happen. This team looks a lot more like a playoff team with a top shutdown pair of Hanifin - Hronek instead of OEL - Myers.

Surprised to see Florida dominated so hard just all over the ice but Vegas just comes at them in waves and is beating them everywhere - special teams, faceoffs, neutral zone is really where they're getting owned. Bob isn't good enough either but it's hardly all his fault. They just destroyed such good teams in Boston, a massive pretender in the Leafs and walked all over Carolina, but you could argue that Toronto and Carolina weren't really very solid playoff teams, whereas Vegas is the perfect playoff team - 4 rolling lines up front, everyone sound defensively and a great top-4 defence and surprisingly solid goalie now too. This Florida team doesn't have any quit in them and they're really going to miss Gudas if he's out for a while, but simply put they have to win the next game and I think they win a close one, goalie duel, in OT to at least make it interesting.

That data-driven list is a good reason why you shouldn't look into analytics too much, but also got to take it a bit seriously. It's also an attempt to standardize all the different leagues, which is why Michkov and Carlsson are ranked so highly - they're playing against men and dropping 0.6PPG which is kind of like good for a 40-50 point scorer in the NHL last year, same reason Reinbacher is so highly rated, and a big reason the D are all over the place. Controversial take but I wouldn't be surprised if Michkov ends up being better than Bedard, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he becomes a complete bust and never plays in the NHL. Biggest wild card we've seen in a long time. You could almost say similar stuff about what Carlsson is doing in the SHL as a kid, and what Fantilli just did in American college. The top-4 just dominated their respective leagues in ways we haven't seen in a long time by children, mostly against men. They're all first overall picks in probably what...the last 10 drafts?

Those sort of projects seem to be what Allvin is all about but I'm hoping the "project era" of his management tenure is over - the time for that was last year when we were a bottom feeder. Now we should be looking to build a playoff team, not a charity, so we should stop hunting for projects who have a 20% chance of being a decent NHLer and start looking for quality and moving pieces around to acquire them. No more moves for bench warmers on playoff teams like Bear, Studnicka etc., it's time to get serious. Trade a winger or two, flip a pick if we need to, free up 5-10M in cap space right there. Trade Myers if we can but we probably can't. Use that winger cap space to acquire a 3C (plenty on the market, take your pick) and ideally a top-4 defenceman. Simples. We clearly can't seem to make a lateral trade in the current hockey market otherwise Boeser for Marcus Pettersson would have been done already, but luckily for us there's about 5 top-4 defencemen on the UFA market who could instantly help this team and around 5-10 potential 3rd line centers. All we need to do is move some cap space, I know, easier said than done, but we're not talking about cap dumps, we're talking about young middle-6 gritty wingers any sort of team could use whether they're rebuilding or contending.

I get all this hype but I think Mikheyev is good enough for the job, plus we'd probably have to spend far too much to acquire Crouse. I'd rather spend that value on acquiring a proper defenceman or 3C.

I think if you're ballsy enough to do this, you do it right at the very end, not at the start of the series. Doing it at the end of a 7-2 win just seems like you're painting the devil on the wall, asking for trouble, and imagine the fire that would give the Panthers. Up 2-0 means nothing. Up 3-0, maybe, but I'd reserve it for if/when they're winning the 4th game by at least a couple of goals, then chuck him in quickly. Only problem would be that the team would flock to Quick rather than Hill who has been outstanding so far, so maybe you quickly pull Hill, throw Quick in at the end of say the 2nd period, then go back to Hill for the end.

Exactly, we don't need goons up front who can't skate or kill penalties. You need the guys who play 20+ minutes to be tough. Whether that's ideally your top line center or 2C, one of your scoring wingers or any of your top 4, it's better than having some random 4th line winger like Joshua throwing hits for 10 minutes a night against weak opposition. I like Miller at 2C, he can play gritty in the playoffs as can Mikheyev, but we need toughness to come from the D and right now we have maybe Hronek who is good enough toughness-wise. We're really 2 strong shutdown defencemen away from being considered a good playoff team. We may well make the playoffs with our current roster but we'll get bullied in the first round with this flimsy defence.

I think it's top heavy but from the top 10 outwards it's pretty much like any other draft. I think there's a good crop of defenders in the 20-40 region but forwards are very top heavy so I don't think it's too "deep" as such. The top 4 players you would argue are 1st overall picks in most drafts (maybe even Smith too). Then the next teir down are pretty impressive, probably from 4-8 you've got guys who would usually go top-3, but honestly after the top-10 it's pretty average with a few good D sprinkled about. Might be a few steals here and there in the later picks (I think guys like Stennberg, Lindstein etc.) but really those 5 stars will take over the league soon and be compared amongst each other the way 1st vs 2nd overall picks get talked about.

Big off-season for Podz, he's a former top 10 pick, should be in the NHL next year. Caufield and Boldy were taken right after him, gives shades of Nylander and Ehlers vs Virtanen but Podkolzin is a slow burner and has time to turn it around. There were a fair few misses in his draft but hopefully he becomes a solid scorer for us, those others are already shredding the league. We've got to make room for him, trade an expensive winger and let Podkolzin and Hoglander get in our middle 6. I'm expecting 20 goals and 40-50 points from Podkolzin next year, I think he's primed for a break out and will steal minutes from PDG on the 2nd line, he's got too much skill and size to just wither away in the AHL.

Yep agreed, when you look at his body of work, I wouldn't say he's gotten better with the Canucks - he's just played with Quinn Hughes. The man has never played with that sort of quality before so of course he looks great in the first half of his Canucks stint, then he really started to slow down in the last 10-20 games (injuries didn't help). He was Edmonton's 7th guy, Carolina's 7th or even 8th guy at times. On a playoff defence, he doesn't crack the top-6 any day of the week let alone at 2.2M. The Canucks defence is obviously a different story, but if we want to be a playoff team and be taken seriously, it shouldn't be. He was a nice place-holder for last year for a low cost but we can't just thrust average defencemen into a top-4 and hope they do well. The deal for Hronek was an uncomfortable one but these are the moves we need to make if we want to make a defence playoff-ready now, rather than draft and take our time with it. I don't mind Bear as a 5th or 6th guy but 2.2M is far too much for that when Burroughs can do the same job and arguably brings more toughness. Of course Bear is a dirt cheap top-4 guy and Hughes can carry pretty much anyone, so it's the lazy option. Call me crazy but what would it cost the Canucks to trade Bear's rights to CBJ and upgrade him to Peeke? If we want to make the playoffs now and win now, we're not going to do so with Bear as our 3rd or 4th guy. Personally I'd let him walk and just sign a UFA like Graves, Gavrikov, Mayfield or even Severson or Dumba if we can get them cheap (say 4M for the latter 2 but I'd rather avoid them) and make the uncomfortable moves up front to shed wingers for the cap.

Kampf is a UFA, not sure if Toronto can possibly re-sign all their guys, they've got to decide on Kerfoot too.

We really can't judge this trade until Hronek plays at least a season for us. This wasn't a trade for now, it's for the future too. He certainly wasn't on my radar as an RD we should target but he's a good, solid two-way young RD so can't complain. The 2nd round pick really stings me to be honest, that's basically a 1st in any other draft, so we've pretty much given up two firsts for Hronek (which is similar to the price Pittsburgh offered for Miller). Big price to pay but you have to pay premium for a team's 2nd best defenceman. I'd love to know who our other targets were. If you look around the league of bottom feeders who could have used a first pick or so, we're talking: 1) Arizona - Chychrun - should be compared to Hronek but just cost a touch too much. Honestly we should have picked him, I was fuming when he dropped and now look at him go. 2) Washington - they're in an interesting spot, not sure if they've finally decided to retool or rebuild, but they have a couple of good young defencemen. They probably want to rebuild around them though, but are in a similar position to Detroit. Iorio or Sandin or Alexeyev or Fehervary are interesting young guys. Most are puck movers though but Alexeyev is a pretty big defensive unit, still young and only playing 3rd pairing minutes, but can play either right or left side (played a lot on the right end of the season I think), and probably wouldn't have cost as much. Seems like a jump but he could have been a partner for Hughes for a 1st round pick alone? 3) Philadelphia - they're in a weird phase too, I wonder if Provorov or less likely Sanheim were available. Would Philly trade Provorov for a 1st and 2nd? Their whole team is a bit of a mess and in a state of flux, this could kick off a rebuild for them. He's certainly not been that good or that bad the last year or two 4) CBJ - okay the big one, they must surely be thinking rebuild now, they've got some picks, got a top one, and have some good young defenders who got destroyed last year so hard to say if it's their fault, or they're just on a bad team. Peeke is the obvious one, but there's also Boqvist and Blakenburg. If I were CBJ I'd probably wait and see what that D can do with Werenski and Bean healthy for a whole season, but would they give up Peeke for a 1st straight up if they want to start a rebuild around a new younger core? I don't think Peeke's worth a 1st and 2nd to be honest, he's had a real down season so don't want to overpay now. I like the direction and attitude to acquiring Hronek - we need to focus on fixing this defence and this is a good start, but PA can't just rest on that, he's got to keep going. We're about 50% of the way to a playoff-worthy defence now. Only thing I was a bit suspicious about is that we had to force Yzerman's hand to trade Hronek - that alone tells you we overpaid, if it was a fair deal and Hronek was on the market we probably would just give up a first. Not overly salty about it, we had to make a deal and clearly couldn't with Boeser or one of our other wingers so just shows the value of young defencemen. In that light, it's another reason why we should focus on drafting more in the higher rounds rather than hoping a 3-7th rounder is going to pan out for us, but ironically you can't do that if you trade away all your 2nd round picks. Just for fun....if we get offered Alexeyev or Peeke for 11OA (and Reinbacher and ASP are off the board), who takes it? Very tempting but silly/risky way to fix this defence instantly. Their low cap hits alone are worth a lot these days. Hughes - Peeke OEL - Hronek Hirose - Myers Burroughs

Right now honestly, I'd have to say the "toughest" Canucks are: 1) Joshua 2) Burroughs 3) Miller 4) Hronek 5) Mikheyev 6) Garland 7) Hoglander 8) OEL and Myers Yikes. By comparison, let's look at a team like Florida: 1) Gudas 2) Tkachuk 3) Ekblad 4) Barkov 5) Staal 6) Bennet 7) Duclair Their list is a lot harder to chalk up, all of their players are out there grinding it every shift. Something you notice with our team is that a lot of our "tougher" guys barely play any minutes. We really need a top guy who can log big minutes and plays with intensity and grit. Up front we don't really have room and Miller and Mikheyev do bring some size and toughness to be fair. We need it on defence. Hronek hasn't played much, from what we saw in Detroit he's a good two-way guy but he's far from a hard-hitting shutdown defenceman, but he brings a bit. Hughes is never going to be that guy. Sadly OEL and Myers had a chance to be, but are just too slow and really don't hit much anymore and don't use their frames well. We need a Mayfield/Gudas/Schenn-type player, but not just some bottom pairing guy - someone who can play 20+ minutes in our top 4. You get a guy like that on the ice most times and we're a lot better as a whole team. Sure, some big strong checking wingers would be nice but we're not in the market to be acquiring more wingers. There's not many big hitting centers in the league and we need a defensive guy at the 3C spot who can kill penalties and win faceoffs well. Joshua and Aman are decent physical forecheckers but they're playing 10-12 minutes a night. I think Hoglander can bring some grit but he's certainly no tough guy. Defence is what we have to focus on. If we could just turn our defence into a big, mean, physical D with Hughes as the main/sole puck mover, I think it'd benefit the rest of our team massively - we can afford to have skilled guys up front if we've got some mean SOBs on the blueline clearing the crease.

I know there's a lot of chat about Wood and Barlow but I don't see Allvin taking one of these North American guys if there's a high-skilled kid (especially European) out there. We must have one of the most intensive set of European scouts in the league and I bet PA will see something we don't. He must be following ASP and Reinbacher closely as the rest of the league are, but it's interesting hearing Button talk about how he thinks Willander should be in that top category. I know Stenberg is likely to go in the late first round but I could so see PA taking him and shocking everyone. It's obviously hard to compare guys playing in different countries but the WJC is always a nice try (although obviously Stenberg's stats are going to look better - he's playing against men in the SHL so his development is a lot more front-heavy). I wonder if drafting a guy who is more NHL-ready now comes into mind as well, surely Reinbacher and ASP are pretty close whereas a lot of the North American guys need time to cook. I honestly wouldn't be mad if we go for Stennberg over Wood or Barlow if all the other big fishes are off the market by then, throw him in the AHL for a year or so and then he'll probably be NHL-ready by 19-20 and can break into the league with Raty.

Bear making it really hard for PA to let him walk, even apart from the Memorial Cup festivities, there's been so much press about Bear - he must be one of the most talked about guys. IMO he's really just not that good and an easy excuse for PA to not go out and acquire a true partner for Hughes. I worry all this publicity is going to force PA's hand and make him re-sign Bear and not get a proper top-4 defenceman.

I like the Garland trade, good idea, that 2nd is very valuable and they still get a pick and young forward. As much as I'd love to target Peeke, it's hard to get a read on CBJ and what they think of him and Boqvist, I'm sure they'd rather keep both and work with them. Not sure who has more value for us either, Garland or Beauvilier. If there's a lateral trade I'm sure it would have been done by now. I'd consider Garland or Beauvillier + Rathbone for Peeke though but doubt they would. Boeser for Peeke almost seems a bit much from us for one of the most scored-on defencemen of the league last year. Getting their 2nd rounder is a great move though - there's going to be a quality defenceman there, someone like Strbak, Lindstein, Willander, Gulyayev, Dragicevic etc. Seems to be the sweet spot for defencemen in the draft usually. Depending on who it is, they'll probably be on our roster in 2-4 years. Don't like O'Reilly, he's old and getting slow and is going to get over-paid. I'd rather target one of the other Leafs guys like Kampf or Kerfoot or go a bit off-board and take a swing at the Detroit guys - Puis Suter or Sundqvist. We've got to think defence, faceoffs and PK first though. ROR fits that bill but he is going to be one to avoid this UFA. 100% agree on fixing the defence but I doubt Allvin has anything left in the tank after the Hronek trade. I'd love to see a big lateral trade - a winger for defenceman, but doubt there's any out there. At the very least, signing a UFA would be nice - we should go big-fish hunting but be careful. Gavrikov has proved he can play well on good or bad teams, he carries very low risk but will get overpaid as a defensive defenceman. Mayfield realistically probably isn't leaving NYI and carries a bit of risk as he gets older, but again boy would he fit the bill of what the Canucks need. Graves carries a bit more risk - he was really supported well by a solid partner and solid NJD team so might flounder by himself, but his stats don't lie. Severson and Dumba certainly scream Myers 2.0. Then there's lower-tier guys like Soucy, but to be honest we have plenty of bottom pairing guys. I just hope PA is active and doesn't sit on his hands this off-season and just draft the BPA and roll with our current team. We have to move at least 1 expensive winger, we have to try to move Myers, we have to acquire a 3C and it'd be nice to get another top-4 defenceman because right now we just have two guys (Hughes and Hronek) who would crack a playoff roster.

I like the thinking but I think we might have to make a few tweaks here or there: 1) I'd rather not trade Brock for Mantha, I think Boeser showed us a lot of promise at the end of last season under Rick (almost PPG in the last 20 games?) whereas Mantha really struggled. If we're targetting Mantha, I think we could get him for Garland or Beauvillier, he's at a real low point in his career right now. Honestly I'd rather just avoid him, we've got enough wingers. 2) Beauvillier probably gets us a late 2nd, maybe high 3rd, or maybe a 2nd next year. 3) I think Myers is going to cost us more than a 5th to move, maybe less if we retain. I'd happily use the Beauvillier 2nd or one of our many 3rds or 4ths to move him, do whatever it takes except for a 1st basically. 4) Re-sign Burroughs as a cheap 6th guy, keep Hirose around, ideally keep Rathbone, let Bear walk. 5) Absolutely on board with signing Kampf, I think he can be had cheaper - maybe 2M. Other options are Kerfoot, Athanasiou, Suter, Sundqvist etc. We should go for the best defensive/PK guy who can win faceoffs and although Kampf was basically a 4C last year, I think he's that guy. Not much offence but Rick would quite like a dichotomous set of centers - Petey and Miller produce offence, Kampf and Aman check, rather than having a Bruce-like 3 scoring lines. 6) The big ticket item - defence. What all of the above is done for - fix this defence and get it world-class. Look at the final 4 playoff teams - they all have solid top-4 defences. The bottom pairings are average but their main four guys log big minutes and have a mix of guys who can do it all - puck movers, good skaters, big physical guys and everyone is solid defensively. Right now we have Hughes and Hronek - that's 2/4. OEL is good but he doesn't crack any top-4 on a playoff team so for me, if we're to be successful, he has to either move (not happening unless we trade a 1st which shouldn't happen, and a buyout is too expensive) or we bury him on the bottom pairing as the best bottom pairing defenceman in the league. That means we need two top-4 guys to make this team a proper playoff force. Hughes is a great PMD, Hronek is a great two-way guy who can do a bit of everything, so we need a big, mean, physical shutdown defenceman (or two). Free agency has Gavrikov, Graves and Mayfield. I doubt we get multiple guys and we have to be a bit cautious, don't want another Myers problem on our hands. Most likely, we'd have to find a young top-4 defenceman via trade rather than just sign all the UFAs. I proposed previously a deal with Pittsburgh - Boeser + Rathbone for Marcus Pettersson. There must be similar deals around the league for similar guys. Most of them are LDs but there are a few RDs out there (eg. Peeke). Wouldn't be easy, and we'd have to give up more than just Garland, and sadly Boeser is the best trading chip we have for a quality defenceman. I'd take that swap any day though. That leaves us with just one hole on defence which we fill with the UFA, depending on who we trade for. I'd rather not target Mayfield, he's really dedicated to NYI and is getting older, but boy is he exactly what we need - a massive, hard-hitting shutdown defenceman. He's like Gudas or Schenn in their prime. Looks like he can play for another good 3-5 years. Gavrikov and Graves would be my first choice (bit of risk with Graves, he has been a bit sheltered) but they'll get snatched up pretty quick. Severson and Dumba are lesser options, neither are very strong defensively and they scream Myers 2.0. For example, let's say we acquire Marcus Pettersson and sign Mayfield 4x4M - 8M for two solid defensive defencemen. Roster for next year: Mikheyev - Pettersson - Kuzmenko Garland - Miller - Podkolzin PDG - Kampf - Hoglander Joshua - Aman - Studnicka Hughes - Mayfield Pettersson - Hronek OEL - Burroughs Hirose Obviously a lot of sting taken out of the forward group but Podz and Hogz come in to replace some scoring. More importantly, look at that revamped defence. That is a playoff-calibre contending team's defence. Doesn't matter which silly forwards you throw out on the ice, under Tocchet's system we win with that defence and Demko in net. Even with injuries we could throw up AHL forwards and still win with that D. Just look at how Florida are doing it - a solid top-4 who play the entire game and no one can break them down. OEL as a 5th guy is massive if we get injuries in our top-4, and he may play really well with sheltered minutes. You could argue our scoring depth isn't great but that is a solid powerplay still and with the stars we have along with a defence that can shut it down, that is how you win in the playoffs.

I quite like Jarnkrok, we could have signed him last off-season so I'd be a bit hesitant in trading a young winger for him when there are probably similar guys on the UFA market this year as well. He did well for the Leafs last year but didn't play primarily center and got destroyed in the faceoff dot though, so doubt he'll be one of our main targets - we really need a good faceoff guy who can kill penalties. I don't mind taking someone who's a step back on offence for that role. For that reason I quite like Kampf, 28 years old, very defensively-aware, mainly played on Toronto's 4th line but good at faceoffs and solid defensively, doesn't bring much scoring but a solid Motte-like guy who can play center. Surround him with gritty wingers like Garland and Hoglander and that's a pretty decent forechecking line, and he can surely be had cheaply (1-2M?). I worry we'll target a guy like Barbashev, throw money at him and he'll be a great scoring center/winger but we need a penalty killer who can win faceoffs most importantly.

The 11th overall to just move Myers is a bit much, he's only got 1 year left on his deal whereas that 11th overall pick could end up being someone like Reinbacher who could be a top-4 defenceman for a decade. I'll take the Myers loss for a year and Reinbacher. We really shouldn't use our 1st to move a bad cap but if we do it'd be OEL, but I'd rather give him another chance instead of moving this pick who could end up a star. The Schenns and O'Reilly are really getting quite old, I wouldn't be targetting them, as tough as they are, they're only going to slow down more and more. These guys are a year or two off retirement, there's bigger, stronger, younger guys out there who could be had a lot cheaper.