The Canucks match.

The ramifications are tough though. That essentially means they have to trade one of their big name players asap just to be able to sign Hughes. So players like Myers, etc all of sudden require a 1st just to move them as teams are not going to help Vancouver and then trading away a good player for moderate value just means you lost an important piece of the team and probably didnt get full value for.

I think any time you can get four 1st round picks from a team that is nowhere near guaranteed to make the playoffs the next 4 years, for a player you pretty much can't afford to sign, you take the picks. Hell use the picks to go get another teams player to replace Pettersson.

Owners showed what they thought of offersheets, thanks to Dundon's strong message. That's the end of those

I think Vancouver takes the picks.
San Jose's next couple of 1sts could very well turn into Wright, Lambert, Cooley, Nemec, Miroshnichenko, Yurov, Bedard, Michkov, Fantilli, Yager, Dvorsky...etc.
Next two drafts are pretty solid.
Canucks could be better off in long-run.

And Devils likely pass on Meier deal.

With Ferland on LTIR, and if they send down Hunt, Rathbone, Di Guiseppe, and Bailey, they’ll have a 22 man roster and $7.389 million in cap space, which should be enough to sign Hughes on a bridge deal. If you’re able to keep a player like Pettersson, especially without having to make any trades, you do it.

To my understanding the Hughes deal is going to be a long term one. In the 7-9M range. I don't think either side wants a short term deal. Regardless if you sign Pettersson to 10M and Hughes to 7M or under, you can run a 22 man roster with 400K cap room. Definitely not ideal but yes technically they can survive.

I personally don't think they should match. Mainly because its SJ picks. If it were Vegas's picks I would match however. So the deal breaker here for me is pick quality. I don't think its an easy match with a not so good teams unprotected 1sts.

That is a good point that I forgot to consider. Yeah considering the team giving the offer sheet is San Jose, I probably wouldn’t match.

Otherwise, I’d match on any team that looks like they’ll be decent.

Devils won't do that