I hope barzal gets an offersheet. This would be an easy match.

The only way I could see us doing this is if we get Laf, Kesler and Eaves retire, and Murray does crack

Absolutely no on that Comtois trade. Why take on salary by trading away a guy who's still on his ELC, who has solid potential.

Other than drafting LaFreniere and offer-sheeting Barzal, I don't see how any of you other moves improve the team. Van Riemsdyk isn't an upgrade over Gudbranson and adding Johnsson and a third-rounder in exchange for the much cheaper Comtois and Jones (who both probably have higher upsides) doesn't help, either. Leave the Rakell-Henrique-Silfverberg (in that order -- you have the wingers on the wrong sides) and Milano-Getzlaf-Heinen lines intact. Comtois/Jones/Des Lauriers-Steel-Rowney is a good fourth line for the next season. If you're going to trade anybody, let it be Jacob Larsson, whom you've forgotten entirely but should be a reasonable commodity.

I, personally, wouldn't trade four firsts for Matthew Barzal, even though I think he's a great player. Nathan MacKinnon, maybe.

Edmonton accepts (pending the Lucic-Neal trade conclusion). How much for Rakell?

Barzal is absolutely in the tier of McKinnon, he's had better numbers his first 3 seasons than McKinnon did, not saying he's Better different players but I'd put them in the same tier together along with Matthews, Eichel - rare players and very hard to find

I wouldn't say "easy", but ain't no one offering Barzal that much.



It's awful. Comtois has been the best looking of all our prospects IMO.



Bouchard + 1st.



Really? I don't think he is. He's a quality player, but doesn't score enough and isn't well-rounded enough for me. Having said that, he's a beast in the playoffs.

Rakell is averaging 18 goals / 46 points over 2 seasons. He isn't worth as much as Bouchard, let alone adding a 1st.

You're right, Rakell sucks! Even though he has two recent back-to-back 30 goal seasons, let's only focus on his past 2 seasons when ANA wasn't a good team and missed the playoffs. Clearly Rakell is absolutely awful. I mean, it's not like he was a core contributor when ANA was good or anything. I guess we're just stuck with him. Poor us. :`(

Love me some strawman!

Love me some cherry-picking.

Cherry picking? You mean looking at this year + last? What you did was cherry picking: valuing a player based on his performance 2-3 years ago rather than looking at his current and recent play.

Nice try though.

Yeah, I didn't do that. I'm assessing Rakell based on his entire career. You're cherry-picking and only looking at his statistics over an arbitrary period that you've decided is "recent" because it fits your narrative.

Zucker got a 1st + a top D prospect + Galchenyuk (a consistent 20 goalscorer and 45 pt player at the NHL level - that is unless you're going to arbitrarily say his "recent play" is that of this season and ignore all of his other years like you're doing with Rakell). Rakell is younger, cheaper, and better than Zucker. Bouchard + 1st really isn't that far a stretch, but I totally understand why EDM wouldn't do that deal. However, he's totally worth a package like that. 30 goal scorers don't grow on trees and Rakell has two 30 goal seasons under his belt, even if you choose to ignore them.

P.S. Don't ask the price of a player and then **** about it. We have a need at RD that Bouchard would fill perfectly. We don't need bottom 6ers, non-bluechip prospects and late round picks for our top players.