habs die

Lol... but is it not a better roster than what they have now?

I don't hate it, but it's mainly because of the $6M of cap space that's still there. Talbot might be fine. The Habs could afford to try for Aaron Dell as a UFA (who might be a decent starter, too) and still have some cap flexibility to make an upgrade on D.

Yep, and some of that cap space comes from burying Benn and Schlemko, but I am really hoping Habs find a way to trade them and get rid of their salaries entirely (I was just too lazy to come up with a good trade scenario for those two lol). Worst came we buy them out.

For the goalies I'd be betting on a tandem here. I'm not entirely sure either Talbot or Lindgren are well equipped to get it done as true #1s, but if they split the starts it might be good enough. Asking Reilly, Alzner, and Valiev to fill the 2nd and 3rd pair duties on a consistent basis might be too much here, but I still think it'd be better than what we had this season.

I think this actually makes sense from Edmonton's point of view too. Obviously losing Draisaitl is a huge blow, but it's somewhat telling that he's still playing the wing while RNH is very effective in his role of 2nd line C behind McDavid. Draisaitl is also not the fastest of skaters, and I wonder if this makes Edmonton reconsider whether he's truly worth the 8.5m he is getting. Giving #97 a sniper like Patch would be big, and then an all-world goalie plus a fast promising prospect on D would help them a lot too.

Obviously there are a ton of NMCs here that make this extremely unlikely, but after this season for both teams, I'm also not 100% certain that either Price or Draisailt will be untouchables this summer.

not really

Well I think it is, so there lol!

No but for real, at least it's a balanced roster, with a proper #1 C and and a better defense (that's because of De Haan's addition though), so there are no major holes in the lineup like we have now. If we drafted one of Tkatchuk/Svechnikov/Zadina plus added Draisaitl, and only subtracted Pacioretty from the forwards, our offense would be a hell of a lot better than now. It all starts from the center position and we are complete garbage there now.

On D, De Haan has proven he can play 21+ minutes and is a good skater, he should be right at the top of Bergevin's list if he makes it to free agency.

Obviously the big question is in nets, that would become an issue in the short term for sure. In the long term, it looks like we may have a found a gem in Cayden Primeau. All the top forwards in this lineup are 25 or under...