There’s no guarantee that Backstrom will be the same player at the end of his contract, plus I think he’ll end up re-signing in Washington. I can say the same about Torey Krug and Mikael Granlund. Those were exactly the same problems that Ken Holland had near the end of his tenure as Red Wings GM. Ok, Granlund and Krug are still young, but they’ll be out of their prime by the time their contracts are up.

I'm not worried as much about Krug. Granlund at 6M bc his value has obv dropped, It won't be that bad, cap is only going to go up. Within 3 years we are probably going to look at 6M contracts the way we look at 4M contracts with the cap going up and players wanting more money. I agree with you on Backstrom I am sure he will resign in Washington. Backstrom to the Wings is a big stretch. Maybe Granlund can be tried at C or maybe Veleno will be ready, who knows.

Lafreniere Larkin Mantha
Bertuzzi Granlund Zadina
Fabbri Filppula Abdelkader
Hirose Glendening Svechnikov

When you try to speed up a rebuild most of the time you end up in that never-ending rebuild. In Yzerman first press conference he said "To do this the right way is going to take patients."

I think it's safe to say Krug isn't leaving Boston. He has said he will take a pay cut to stay in Boston.

I really like the idea of trading for Sergachev. I think he can be exactly what this rebuild needs, and if I'm Stevie I'm going after him hard. I dont think this trade is it though. The only reason Tampa will move him is because they cant afford him. If we trade them AA, he would be signing for a similar cap hit as what Sergachev would sign for, plus they take on Helms 3M. That's literally all $8M of their cap space right there. Basically what I'm saying is it has to be for futures. I think a lot of it depends on our draft. If we draft 2nd overall and get Byfield, or fall to 3rd or 4th and get Stutzle, that makes one of Veleno or Rasmussen tradeable because we would have our clear cut 1 and 2 centers in Larkin and Byfield/Stutzle. If we win 1st, I think it makes someone like Fabbri expendable, but it still complicates things because we really have no good winger prospects, minus Zadina who is untouchable. Then we get into picks, which should also be pretty much untouchable. Honestly I hope we get Byfield over Lafreniere this draft, we need centers way more than wingers, and if you really dig into the stats I think it's a lot closer race for 1st overall than many people realize. If we get Byfield, I think Veleno for Sergachev 1 for 1 might be close to fair. I would have to pitch that trade idea on here (which I will right after this) but that's best case imo