So why does Vegas make that trade? Oh, to havea 4 year cap hit of Ryan and lose good prospects.

Blues probably didn't want to put Kyrou in the deal BEFORE all of this off-ice garbage. I'm thinking Hoff's value would be something like the 29th overall pick + Blais/Foley/Barbashev, and given the Blues' own problems with togetherness in the room / playing for each other, I doubt there is much interest left in Hoffman. Such a shame that this all came out. He was probably our best offseason target. TBH I'd still take him and hope that he can overcome, but this drama is going to not only affect his trade value, but probably going to affect his game.

I think a second and third round pick is enough after all this, but I read an article about how getting him if you’re the blues just isn’t worth it bc Pietrangelo went through something similar

That "Karlsson, E." guy might have somewhat of an impact... But I forgot, you don't really believe in the ability of a good team to extend a potential UFA .

Very true, although it seems like this chick's obsession with Melinda Karlsson is a one-off - I doubt she just hates people for miscarrying - but it's definitely a big enough red flag to steer clear and find another player. My focus would be on Jeff Skinner if I'm Doug Armstrong. The cost being a good prospect and a 1st - that's what we'd have to pay for Hoff originally.

I'd def much rather skinner as a blues fan as I just think he's a better player in the first place. What I'm wondering if we do something like Tage + 1st for Skinner and then try to make one more move for Pacioretty, Hoffman or someone really off the radar like Bjugstad, Domi, Draisaitl, Toffoli, Burakovsky or Reinhart.

Idk - the next two weeks could be pretty fun.

I think Klim or Tage plus the WPG pick could be enough, and I think we could work an extension with Skinner and really win that trade. Definitely excited to see what happens. I'm 90% sure there will be a trade to announce when we're on the board at 29... to the point that I'm not really even looking at potential draftees like I usually would haha.

Sorry I forget the definition of UFA. UNRESTRICTED free agent. I wish when folks made this phoney trades they would at least have the dignity of showing the team that is really impacted by the additional salaries. Try making a roster of 2018/19 of Vegas and see how they are affected by an additional 13.75 m for two players with no cap going back to Ottawa and for 2019/20 if Karlsson resigns.

This could very well be what a real EK trade would look like, and VGK wounldn't be the only team in the league with a 11m guy and a 7.25m guy as their most expensive assets. It's very doable. Here, I made one as quick as I could https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/732236

Edit: and for the upcoming season, they are projected to have over 25m in cap space, so I didn't even bother trying to mock that up. Easily doable.

Thanks, I saw your new posts and made a comment. I wasn't particularly talking about this trade, but we see trades all the time trading high priced players often without the cap regard to the "receiving" team.

I certainly agree. Too many trades here only work for one side in terms of cap (and quality) but in this case Vegas has a very interesting scenario playing out. Western conf champs with tons of cap space and quality prospects. It will be interesting to see what they do. I bet they get EK.