Bud I have one question for you.

WHY?

Those assets tho

I know this is a dream and all but still... why would Washington trade so many of their assets. Ok Holtby I get, but trading for Vasili Podkolzin. That’s messed up. Take out podkolzin and maybe put someone else in. The Montreal trade I like, they get a real number one centre, the first since the likes of Vincent Damphousse. Some trades I like, some I don’t.

Why on earth would Montreal do that trade? I wouldn't trade out 1st round pick this year for Backstrom. That's terrible.

The jets aren't giving up their entire future for a 30 year old D man having an outlier season

The Caps aren't giving the Leafs Radko Gudas for a 4th round pick.

Call up Djoos, Boyd, Sgarbossa, and Moulson. Let the new kids develop in Hershey. On the above team, pairs are probably Kempny-Siegenthaler as a very good shutdown pair, Djoos-Jensen for average puck movement, Kulikov-Seabrook/Ceci as a veteran third pair to keep things under control. That doesn't make them a contender, but it's not the worst in the league this year, even before other teams sell at the deadline. Goaltending is average. Forwards end up very, very bad, but also not quite the worst, before other teams sell.

The Caps already have 65 standings points, after 45 games. Last year the last place team finished with 64, after 82. The above team is not as bad as last year's post-deadline Senators. The above team could play on a 70 point pace the rest of the way. That leaves them in a wild card, so draft position shouldn't motivate any of these trades.

So overall the Caps probably don't do most of this? Even though it'd be a ton of picks in a deep draft and it could turn into a lot of good players for a long time.

Okay. I googled Podkolzin. Interesting. So the Caps are buying a recent 10th overall pick who has zero points in the first half of his regular season this year in a European league, by taking on $20M of bad contracts? Yeah. That's messed up.

Washington will decline even for ovechkin