Maybe not entirely realistic but I like this a lot! Bottom six LW are pretty weak and that third line is a bit weak in general minus Stastny. Still solid

Stastny & JvR will definitely cost more
We’re gonna have to outbid all the other teams after them

But my biggest problem is our defense

You’re trading for another LH defenseman
Which means 5 of our 6 top defensemen are LH

At the very least,
I think we’d have to move Scandella for a RH defenseman

Also,
I really doubt Carolina would do that trade
We are sending them about 16.5mil in salary, and they are sending out only about 10mil or so
They have a new cheap owner
Can’t imagine they’d even remotely consider bringing in Bogosian at all, or even Lehner unless they could trade Darling (who’s under contract at over 4mil per)

So now you’re down to O’Reilly & a couple mid round picks for Hanifin & Skinner
That’s just not nearly enough to get both those players

Dahlin likes to play on the right side, which would make the LH RH split much more workable.

That being said, I'm not a huge fan of the trade. Skinner is one year away from free agency, so he'd be long gone before we're a legitimate contender. We could probably get a good return for him at the deadline but that would likely be picks or prospects and just set us back even further.

Hanifin is overrated in my opinion. He has good offensive skills and is still young with lots of room to grow, but I have not been impressed with his defensive play. Carolina is able to shelter him behind Pesce and Slavin, but we wouldn't be able to do that in Buffalo and I worry that throwing him to the wolves would be detrimental to his development.

And with Dahlin coming in, we aren't in desperate need of a top pairing defenseman anymore. We could use another solid middle pairing guy, but one could be had for a much cheaper price than Ryan O'Reilly.

I know Dahlin has played the right too
But everything I’m reading from scouts & “experts” is that he’s mostly played the left side
And that he’d be much better off (at least starting) on his strong side while adjusting to the smaller ice surface

I’m not even sure that we need to add anything to our defense

Dahlin-Ristolainen
Scandella-McCabe (have 1 of them play the off side)
Guhle-Nelson
Beaulieu

Pilut in Rochester, with Borgen, Falk & Fedun
Bogosian... hurt as usual

If anything,
maybe move Scandella or McCabe for a RH guy?
But we do have Borgen coming,
so i wouldn’t be super worried about it