Ekholm is locked in at a good rate man. Nashville isn't giving him up right now let alone for a pending UFA and a 2nd on top?

Well, Nashville is one of the few teams that can afford to sign Reilly long-term, and we can agree he is better than Ekholm. Nashville however won't be ready to compete until after Ekholm's extension is run out. I genuinely believe that Ekholm agreed to a four year extension just so that he had cost certainty for at least the next four years of his career, because notice that he doesn't have any trade protection built into his extension, so for that, I have to believe he is very much open to being moved just like Ryan Ellis

Ekholm is better than rielly. Ekholm has a better contract situation than rielly by a mile.



Why?

Reilly is going to get a contract with an AAV way higher than $6.25 million, everyone knows that, so don't you tell me Ekholm is better than him. Age has nothing to do with the difference in talent

Rielly is going to hit the market so he’ll get more. That doesn’t mean he’s better than rielly. I don’t think any hockey fan outside of toronto would think rielly is the better of the two players. It’s very clear cut.

Well, if that is the case, then there is one more defenseman that is going to get a monster contract, Seth Jones/Darnell Nurse-esque. One step closer to another lockout *Sigh* :/:/:/

Why? Rielly isn’t in that category. I think open market he gets 5x6.5

Really? 6.5M per is what Colton Parayko got, and it's debatable whether or not Parayko is even a top pairing caliber defenseman. On even a good team, Morgan Reilly is more often than not a no. 1 defenseman, and as much as I don't like the leverage it gives his camp, I think he compares pretty favorably to Seth Jones and Darnell Nurse. More so than he does guys like Adam Pelech or Ryan Pulock

Parayko is a country mile better than Rielly. Rielly hasn’t played like a top pair d man in a number of years

Okay I'm sorry, but you are starting to sound like a Reilly hater now

I’m not! I even known how to spell his name. I think he’s a pretty cool dude. Loved what he did on biz does BC. But he is what he is. Just hasn’t played like a top pair guy, let alone a number one guy for years. If he was playing like a number one, the leafs would have had a lot more success.

NSH trades the better player, with the better contract, and adds the better pick? Sorry, but this isn't close to realistic.