Ellis >> Kessel
Smith >>>>>>> Johnson - a negative value asset

Smith yes, but I'd take Kessel above Ellis if I were NSH...

Ellis was one of the best defensemen in the league last season, is at a better age and on a better cap hit than Kessel. They might need scoring, but they can get that without giving up Ellis. You can't really argue in a vacuum when the league isn't in one. Ellis' value far exceeds Kessel's, if they wanted Kessel they could literally trade Ellis to the Wild for say Zucker and Spurgeon, trade Zucker for Kessel and keep or flip Spurgeon for some assets

No, I don't see MIN accepting that. I gotta say that I haven't watched that many NSH games except the DAL series since I'm a DAL fan, and Ellis wasn't anything too special in that series... He's a great TOP4 D, but if I had to pick him or an 80-point winger, I'd probably stick with the latter one.

Kessel is great offensively, but he's basically what people think Nylander is defensively. He's not that valuable at 5on5 because of that. He'd be a great asset on Nashville's power play for sure, but at 5on5 he'd generously be their 5th best winger. Now Nashville is a team that can afford to have a winger like that, cause Forsberg is amazing defensively and at 5on5, while both Arvidsson and Smith are good. But that doesn't justify losing Ellis, who was better in Letang at 5on5, on the pp and on the pk this season by any relative expected numbers. Ellis doesn't get the counting stats to show for it because Nashville is deep on D, not because he doesn't outperform most other defensemen by any per minute stat

Admittedly, I'm not very high on Ellis after his performance last year during both the regular season and postseason, but I'm not sold on moving him for Kessel. NSH likely gets more value elsewhere due to his contract.