Sorry...forgot to add that isles play Byfuglien for this season only then do a buyout in June 2020. Bring Hickey back as 7th D or promote top D prospect from Bridgeport (Aho at this point) next season.

Lol jets laugh at you for even offering this. Jets aren’t moving buff. He’s either gonna play out his last 2 years with the jets or retire. Nothing else, there is literally 0 chance he get traded

Hey Bud. Continue to laugh while Buf sits at home, your defence is terrible and you continue to fall in the standings. It was just an idea. You apparently have no ideas but to suggest Buf retire and have terrible defence in Winnipeg. Good luck to you. .

It's not the $$$s that matter. It's the cap hit. Boychuk still has a 6 mil cap hit.

I’m not sure what your point is. Byfuglien has a 7.6 mil cap hit. Are you saying the problem would be Boychuks 6 mil cap hit in the last season? Or all three years?

Boychuk is a solid 2nd pairing defensive defenseman. Its better to have that than have a 7.6m dman sit out.

I’d rather see buff sit at home and not play than trade for a pylon in boychuk lol. Yeah the WPG defence is way below average but I’d literally rather have what we have now. All it takes is buff making the decision to return and everything changes. My suggestion is to do nothing. Winnipeg would be absolutely stupid to go out and make a bad trade to try and fill a blue line need. They lose every trade because each and every GM knows what position we’re in. Why not just let the young guys play, weather the storm and then have an experienced group for years to come.

I’m trying hard not to laugh at this post @arafay @MissTheWhalers @Isles777

No realistically it’s not, I don’t think boychuk is a second pairing guy and like I said above I think he’s a pylon. All he can do is shoot the puck. I’d rather have jets blue line now than him. Buff isn’t going anywhere. Plus jets already have the 7.6 off the books lol. If buff decides not to play they could make a move at TDL for a guy who can actually play.

I’m really not sure the isles would want to downgrade from Boychuk to Byfuglien anyway. You may think he is a pylon until you get in the corner with him. Good luck to you. Someone suggested solid 2nd pairing defenceman. I’m not sure if I would go that high but definitely solid 3rd pair

Boychuk is a pylon that is currently playing well and making uncharacteristic plays just to spite me.

Winnipeg will be sellers at the TDL if they follow your logic. You won’t need the 7.6 off the books for that.

As long as Byfuglien is suspended without pay, he doesn't affect the cap. If Buff returns, WPG will gladly welcome him back.

The thing is, Buff at $7,6M for 2 years is a much, much better contract than Boychuk's $6M for 3 years. With the level they both showed last year, I'd say Buff is overpaid for a million or two, but Boychuk is getting more than two times than he deserves... Which makes this quite laughable.

But at the moment since Buff don't affect on WPG's salary cap, they have no reason to move him. This makes it essentially WPG taking a bad contract for basically nothing.

This is exactly why this post is a joke.

I don’t disagree that Byfuglien is a better contract than Boychuk. Why else would I suggest this.

I disagree with “they have no reason to move him”. As long as Winnipeg struggles and falls in the standings while he sits and does not retire is not tenable forever. They say he is contemplating retirement but is that really the issue? Byfuglien needs to make up his mind. It is actually quite ridiculous and unprofessional what he is doing.

I don't think the OP has any understanding of the situation... Byfuglien's cap hit doesn't stay on the books if he retires. And if he won't play in Winnipeg he is definitely not going to play anywhere else. There's no point for this ACGM, and Winnipeg has no reason to do this... Is this a joke?

What is actually a joke is that the isles defeated Winnipeg 2 times this year with a supposed pilon on defence for probably 20 minutes each game and all that offence on Winnipeg didn’t seem to accomplish much.

Not quite. His role as an enforcer is extremely rough to keep up at 30+. See how many agitators are suffering from different kinds of problems after their careers? Some of them get addicted to drugs or alcohol, get depressed etc or might also suffer actual brain damage after constantly getting hits. At worst case scenario they might get killed close to 50's or commit suicide. Buff has already suffered a number of injuries. I very much get why he wants to contemplate in peace whether playing hockey is worth risking all that...

But yeah, as long as Buff doesn't affect to the cap (which he won't do either if he retires), WPG has zero incentive to do this kind of trade. They'd rather take a look for a defenseman who might be of positive value. I'd imagine a deal between Pens involving Perreault and Gudbranson for example would be much higher in their interest.

Listen. If Buff retires he won’t count against the cap.

If he plays, he’s a way better player than Boychuck. Maybe not the all star he used to be, but a top 4 D.

There is no scenario in which it makes sense to trade Byfuglien. For anything

Hey I’m listening. You supposed Winnipeg fans are really coming to Byfuglien defence in this unprofessional matter. Seems pretty clear that you guys already know that Byfuglien is not going to retire and that he is coming back at some point. It really just looks like to everyone else that this is cap shenanigans.
Since you already know he is coming back, I agree, it is clear that Winnipeg really doesn’t need to do anything to bolster their defence. Thanks for the info.

3rd pairing d-man vs top pairing behemoth. The winner of the trade is pretty obvious