Recent acgms

There's just nothing "high end" enough heading to Columbus. You successfully navigate your way out of the Josh Bailey contract, and send a couple of prospects who are having so/so seasons.

Adding a 1st is nice, but Columbus needs a high end prospect coming back, at the bare minimum.

I agree that sending Bailey to them wouldn’t work, but if anyone sends a high end prospect for Laine that GM should be fired on the spot. Laine is a middle 6 W, PP specialist who will get overpaid for what he did 4 years ago.

I respectfully disagree on your valuation of Laine. Yes, he'll likely be overpaid, but natural goal scorers aren't easy to come by, and many forget that even through the ups and downs of his career, including last years debacle, he still ranks as #12 in the entire league since he joined. Having a stud on the powerplay isn't a bad thing, either.

We’d need one piece headlining the trade. Which this trade does not have. A bunch of decent pieces that don’t add up to laine.

Winnipeg was arguably the best passing team in the league when he was there (Ehlers, Wheeler, Scheifele were all elite passers) - Laine benefitted from that and he even regressed after the first two seasons when the league figured him out. His shot is elite, but everything else about his game is that of a bottom 6 forward. 15 goals in his last 61 games...

I'm sure someone will overpay in trade/contract, but Laine is worth no more than a late 1st and his value is probably in the 4.5-5 mill range.