You wouldn’t get Patrick Laine for JT Miller one for one, never mind Columbus adding to the deal.

Playing fourth line tonight . Benched a few times now.

Miller is significantly better than Laine

Laine's qualifying offer is $7.5 million.

I did forget about that , Thanks. Truthfully Miller has outscored Laine in the last two years anyways.

Don't think you will get a second for Holtby. Holtby is a backup goalie at this stage in his career. People probably aren't going to be lining up to acquire a 4.8 million dollar backup goalie. Retain 50% of that deal and you might generate some interest at that price.

Who is Sabers starting goalie tonight ?

Ullmark I think.
But any goalie for Buffalo is going to be bad.

Holtby, who has relatively poor stats in a backup role for a fairly bad but not atrocious team, would be terrible in Buffalo likely.
Buffalo can probably get an equal goalie for much cheaper in free agency (Riemer, Riitch, Dubnyk, etc).

Sabers starter tonight is some guy who has played pro hockey for 9 years and getting his first start tonight. Some guy named Houser. Holtby has been very good for us lately . He had a rough start when the team was really bad at the beginning of the year.

True, and I don’t really have high hopes for tonight. Maybe a miracle will occur and Hauser will play well. Still, Holtby makes far too much money to expect a good return in a trade without retention.

Actually the current CBA has new rules about qualifying offers. Teams are no longer required to automatically offer a 10% raise if the player already made a salary over $1 million a year. In these cases the teams are only required to offer the same salary he already had in a qualifying offer. So $6.8 million roughly, still not great but he is an elite goal scorer when he’s right. Chances are he would have to sign the qualifying offer because he’s not getting a raise.

The flaw in your thinking is that cap hit (AAV) and salary are the same. As you yourself point out, it's the latter that is determinative. Laine's salary this season is $7.5 million, hence my statement that his QO is $7.5 million.

Buffalo is so bad it probably doesn't even matter at this point who is in net. They will still not be anywhere near the playoffs. For them to spend a second on a rental is a horrible idea.

Sure, he's been good of late, but a .901 save % (Holtby's stats for this season) is not good at all. Not starter material at any rate (and it doesn't help this year us actually an improvement from last year). The sabres would be better off getting someone for cheaper (in both cost and cap hit) in free agency.

If that’s the case isn’t there a decent chance that he doesn’t even get a qualifying offer? Who actually believes he’s worth $7.5 million a year?

A two-year contract would bring him to free agency, so if Columbus decides to go with a new coach, I can see them gambling one year at that price to see what kind of effort he makes. But he might well be a flat-cap casualty.

He would still end up with the highest bidder as a free agent. But then of course Columbus gave up their franchise center in exchange for Roslovic and what ends up being nothing else.

I haven't been watching Vancouver lately, but I keep hearing that supposedly Miller is looking like a capable NHL-level center of late. If and only if that is true, this deal could work for the Jackets. Otherwise, it doesn't.

Miller is a very capable center . I am not a fan of the media but even they suggest making Miller Canucks center and moving Pettersson to wing