Of course Detroit would accept those deals, but I don't see why Ottawa or Tampa would make them.

Tampa will just flip TJ to Seattle for less than that and Ottawa still has team control on Logan Brown. I'm sure they'd rather keep their former 1st round pick and see how he develops, than get a mid round pick.

I don’t think TJ would go for less to Seattle, they have all the leverage. Logan Brown could possibly be exposed to the expansion draft (I think, not 100% sure.) He seems like a classic “needs a change of scenery” guy to me anyway

Agree with all of this except the part about Logan Brown. Dorion was reportedly shopping him hard at the deadline as the Sens haven't liked his development so far and don't see a clear path to the NHL at centre for him with so many guys on their roster that can play the middle and are already ahead of him (Stuetzle, Pinto, Batherson, Tierney, ect.). & with Brown not being exempt from the expansion draft, they'd likely lose him for nothing to Seattle if they still had him around. On the trade value front, Calgary traded Sam Bennett for a prospect and a 2nd, and in the Laine for Dubois deal, Roslovic was included for a 3rd round. So I think If Ottawa can get a 3rd rounder for him, they'd be lucky. Maybe change it to another guy that needs a change of scenery, but Brown's value isn't too much and he's definitely available before the expansion draft.

I could definitely see Seattle taking Johnson for less than what you have Tampa giving away. It's also been mentioned before that Tampa wasn't willing to move a 1st or a top prospect tp move Johnson and you have them doing both, so I don't see them doing that. As much as I believe you're right that Seattle has the most leverage in this situation, Tampa Bay has some too. They'd be sending a guy in Johnson to Seattle who could play on their top line and is from the area, that becomes a highly marketable player for a new expansion club to help with the fan interactions. Think similar to Deryk Engelland's impact with Vegas. & I think for that Seattw would be wise to work out a deal with Tampa, which then creates leverage for Tampa Bay and lowers the cost from what you have

A late 2022 first and Hugo is probably about right for taking on TJ. There’s quite a bit of leverage on TB as they have exceeded the cap ceiling quite a bit.

Maybe my price is a bit steep but there’s no way they move TJ anywhere w out a first

Also, Hronek and Vrana are going to cost more than that and also, Frederick Anderson, yuck.

What was Engelland’s impact with Vegas? As someone who lived in Vegas for 2 decades and went to many Wranglers games I can honestly say vast majority of fans didn’t know who he was especially when they introduced him at the expansion draft. The only marketing gig he had was Kia, I’ve seen a lot more marketing with Wild Bill, Fleury, Reaves, Schmidt, and Stone. Now TJ is a more household name than Engelland but the cap is much higher and with stagnant cap I can’t see him being easy to move. Do you have a source where the GM said he isn’t moving a first or top prospect to move cap?

I think they could easily flip him to Seattle for just the 1st. TJ is a local boy and is a "name" that they can market and Seattle still needs to hit the cap floor. It's just a good fit in Seattle.

EDIT - Just saw this post, which essentially says the same thing:

Seattle has plenty of ways to hit the cap floor. I don’t think they should give Tampa a discount on TJ just because he’s marketable, he’s just not that good anymore

It's not that they "should", it's that they probably will. The first few years of an expansion team are more about marketing, than winning. Vegas was lightning in a bottle and Seattle MAY be able to pull off something similar, but they still need to approach it from a business perspective.

85M is what CF shows for TB next year with 14 players. Seattle know this, and TJ has continually regressed the past couple years. We can say he’s losing playing time but that just points to he’s losing ice time to better players. He was also born in Spokane & played there which is the other side of the state. If there was any player Seattle should go hard after to create a face of the franchise it’s Oshie. They also started season tickets over a year ago and hit 3x their goal so this just shows you don’t need TJ to sell seats especially considering there is a hockey presence already in the area.

To the edit, I’ve already addressed that post as someone who lived in that market up until last month for a couple decades. VGK didn’t get any marketing advantages for Engelland but Johnson is a bigger name. Anyone saying otherwise is just feeding this narrative but it’s useless as they’ve well surpassed their season ticket goal.

Julien Brisebios has said on multiple occasions Hugo isn't available. I understand that's GM speak for it'll cost more than most will be willing to pay, and with the lightning trading their other goalie prospect this deal isn't going to be it.

Why do they need Hugo tho considering u guys have a top 2 goalie in the league locked up for a while

They had Vasy as a backup for 2 years what happens God forbid Vasilevskiy has a major injury.

I don't see Detroit trading Verbeek. His uncle is the Assistant GM and with his playing career likely ending soon he will probably start working for the Wings. That is the most likely reason he was acquired.

As Bolts20cup they most likely won't trade Hugo but a 1st and a decent prospect would be enough. I'm starting to think it might make sense to bring TJ to Detroit we could use a center. The Fabbri as a center didn't work out and I think Filppula might retire, Plus Yzerman knows what he is getting with TJ but will he waive for Detroit. I know a lot of people said he will waive for Yzerman but I still don't the connection between player and GM is that strong. I could see a coach having that much influence over a player but not a GM. Maybe he does waive but who knows.

OTT declines.

That would be selling at the absolute low on LBrown. Not worth it when OTT is already pick rich. Better suited to just hold onto him and hope he figures it out.

Prove it. Show me one quote where Brisbois said anything about an eighteen year old goalie prospect being untouchable.

Yeah, the NTC is interesting and hard to speculate on as we don’t know the relationship between TJ & Yzerman. Bobby Ryan spoke extremely high of the interaction they had leading to why he signed so everyone is a little different. If Hugo is the deal breaker then no big deal, it can be revised to 2022 1st and 2nd round picks but ultimately the important part is the return of at least the first.

I believe it was Pierre LeBrun that said it on air let off-season when people didn't know how Tampa would be cap compliant

I couldn’t see anything about Lebrun saying what was untouchable in the trade. I saw him discuss the issue with TJ’s NTC and how they’d need approval. He also speculated that there would be interest in him across the league (pre-waivers) which we know didn’t happen now but that appeared to be his speculation. Then he re-tweeted Friedman’s tweet about Kucherov’s LTIR allowing the team to be cap compliant at the start and that ended most, if not all of the news about TJ in that time frame from what I’ve seen. I think it’s also important to note that Yzerman labeled Mantha a core piece when he signed him to an extension and then subsequently moved him at the TDL so things do change from offseason and even more so in this scenario since it’s required via salary compliance. I think it’s also worth noting, I don’t see Hugo as a top prospect in my eyes so I’d be fine with a pick anyway but was curious of the source as I don’t recall seeing it (still curious if someone can post the URL/video).