I’m not a fan of giving up a first for Seattle to take Drouin - even if it does clear cap space. Drouin is a perennial 50 point player on a good contract. The pressure of Montreal was hard on him and anywhere else I think he continues to be a 50-60 point guy without that pressure.

Let Seattle take whoever they want and be done with it. The most I would use as a sweetener would be a 3rd round pick. It’s still a pick with value and if it does sway them to take player X over player Y then sure do it, but don’t let them push you around by handing out 1sr round picks to get “rid of” Drouin. I think you could still trade him for a 2nd or 3rd.

Poehling is 2x$750k. Pretty straightforward deal for both sides.

You’re not close for Danault, neither cap hit nor term.

Montreal isn’t paying to trade Drouin. His contract doesn’t count against the cap while he’s away from the team.

I agree that a Savard signing makes sense. Plus it takes from your chief rival. Not that they have any cap space to re sign people anyways right now.

On Drouin:
Given how well the four d’s have played this playoff, I’m not comfortable exposing any of them, so we either go 8 skaters and expose valuable depth pieces like Lehky and Evans or we go 7-3-1 and expose Chiarot or Edmundson. On top of that, we do not know if Drouin will even play next year, and that uncertainty may make Seattle hesitant to take him straight on, passing up on the aforementioned Evans, Lehkonen, or Chiarot/Edmundson.

On Danault:
Yeah I may change it to 6x$5 mil, but that’s my max. I compare danault to JG Pageau and Anthony Cirelli, but Danault doesn’t nearly have the offensive upside of those other two. Just a little hesitant to give up that amount of money for a guy who’s really struggled to score these past couple years, but after what he’s done this playoffs, I’ll bite.

Not close on Danault meaning way too high, not slightly too low.

Yeah I agree with that. Realistically I’d like around 4, but it’s UFA market and you gotta overpay.

Just wondering, what would you value him at?

$25mm over 8 years front end loaded with signing bonus money same NTC as Gallagher. Comes to $3.125mm cap hit.
Or 5x$3.5mm, slightly more than Adama Lowry’s post Covid deal, as I think Danault is slightly more valuable than Lowry, but not much more. $17.5mm total contract value.
Or 4x$4mm. $16mm total contract value.
In no scenario would I offer Danault a higher cap hit than Toffoli.

Just my opinion, fwiw.

Yeah I agree with that. Realistically I’d like him on the 4x4, but I just think some team will give him >5, whether that be montreal or someone else.

A fool GM and their cap space are soon parted. Anyone who pays Danault that will likely regret it within the first season. And their team likely won’t project to be very good.

That said, we see mistake after mistake each UFA signing day (not so much last year though), so it’s entirely possible that this year will not be different.

Yep, but that’s the NHL for ya, but there definitely will be some schmuck that does it.