I voted 4th option: I win.

MTL loses

we turned Sergachev into Klefboom
Fans would riot .

Nurse for Drouin sure
but Klefboom is like Shaw , injured to consistently to pretend he's getting full value in a trade

There are benefits to the trade for MTL.

My motive for the trade is to gain cap space, and a partner for Erik Karlsson (assuming the habs land Karlsson).

Do you think Edmonton could add picks to balance the trade more? In your opinion what pick would have to be included?

Edit:
I think you have to look past Sergachev for Drouin when making any new Drouin trade. It's been two years. The habs were hoping drouin would be a #1C and breakout. He hasn't done any of those things so far, they likely wouldn't make that trade again today.

i think if you wanted Drouin you got to go with either Nurse staright up or if you really wanted a Klefboom deal we'd need either Khiara or Puljujarvi.

but if you're looking for cap for Karlsson we got tons until 2022 with only Domi in any position to negotiate.
then before 2022-23 season we gotta sign Gallagher , Tatar ,Danault , kotkanemi and Petry .

easy solution is to Trade Petry and you open up enough long term cap space to keep Karlsson with 8-9m left over for the next 3-4 years that we could target another big name.

most of the players coming up at the end of their entry level will take less for term including Mete , Juulsen and Lehkonen likely getting 3-5 year deals .
of the UFA's we have to sign in 2022-23 only Gallagher is likely to be re-signed with the rest likely being flipped for picks/prospects.

i think your best value is in taking a guy like Petry and trading him to PHI for Hagg and a 2nd or to CGY for Brodie straight up .

I don't want to trade Petry. Trading Petry doesn't open up any long term cap space, he only has 2 years left.

Part of the reason I want to trade Drouin is because he does not fit in the habs lineup anymore (in my opinion). Lehkonen outplayed him with Domi line. Tatar outplayed him on Danault line. Byron outplayed him on KK line. I would rather invest his $5.5M into a top 4 D and an additional $1.4M in cap space to use elsewhere.

I'm not big on Puljujarvi. Armia is better already and habs have Ylonen and Ikonen coming so it's not like Puljujarvi is needed. Would rather have a 2nd round pick, but I feel like that might be too much from Edmonton. Taking a chance on Puljujarvi might actually work, but I'm not sure.

i like Lehkonen dont get me wrong but he's more streaky then Drouin by a country mile .
his rookie year he had 11 points 6 goals in the final 12 games with Shaw as his center and Chucky as his LW .
the next season they tried playing him with Chucky to see if they could spark the same offense both had with no offense produced.
later he played on a like with Plekanec and Shaw with no offense produced .

Lehkonen needs the perfect set up to be of use offensively and thats a problem especially when he show's no signs of ever reaching Drouin's level .

Drouin's consistently put up 50 pt average the past 3 years growing into a role here .
Tatar is a nice piece but he was never meant to be part of the core

i think Tatar today is clearly better then Drouin but not by much as shown in the seasons player stats . Given the age gap between the 2 it just makes little sense especially when any trade with Drouin short of a top LD prospect under 25 will be seen as a loss but anything we get from Tatar will seem like extra on top of Suzuki , 50th overall pick in 2019 and whatever we get from Tatar.

Ylonen like his father before him is another 1-2 years away and is a middle 6 forward . his father was basically Byron at a time when head hunters layed you out at center ice .

Ikonen like his Brother one of Liiga's league leaders in scoring in the past 5 years , will take a significant amount of time and effort to develop if he's anything like his brother who's overachieved consistently .

you are right about not needing JP today though , he would be best off in the AHL developing so coach Bouchard can break the bad habits of the half dozen coaches he's dealt with at AHL and NHL level in EDM.

Without going to far into everything, the difference between a streaky lehkonen and Drouin is lehkonen is at least reliable defensively. So when lehkonen's not scoring, at least hes not getting scored on, the same can't be said for Drouin.

If lehkonen was given drouin's powerplay minutes last year, I would argue the two would have produced the same amount of points, however one was -8, the other was +11.

I'm not trying to talk lehkonen up, or anything, but Drouin needs to be better. I believe he can be better too, but I would still trade him if I liked what I got in return.