Ottawa says "Thank you, Come again!"

The Oilers don't need depth LHD (they have tons of them!) and Turris can be buried for next to nothing.

If I'm reading your comments correctly, removing those guys makes the trade:

Koskinen
2nd
3rd

- for -

Fleury (50% retained)
3rd

This makes more sense from a value perspective, but what does Edmonton gain from it? A more experienced backup and $1M in cap space at the cost of a 2nd. That might be worth it for them if they can use that $1M for an upgrade elsewhere.

CHI
Murray, Matt
2022 2nd round pick (OTT)
Additional Details:
MM is owed $18M for the rest of his contract.

This saves Melnyk $6.5M, while also reducing long term cap, while also getting potential upside with Strome.
OTT
Johnson, Tyler
Strome, Dylan ($1,500,000 retained)
Shaw, Andrew
Additional Details:
TJ and Strome are owed approx. $11.5M and there's some small upside on Strome albeit at this point not too much. Shaw has retired. He's a cap hit which OTT can easily take for the rest of this year.

Why should the Hawks even consider this?!?!?! It's not obvious, but Shaw leaving should confirm that season ending bonuses won't roll into next year. The Hawks don't currently have a goalie next year and while I don't like Murray's cap hit...I also don't like TJ's cap hit for a #4C either. I'll roll the dice with this because of the pick.

Don't believe all the anti-Murray hype, it's actually the pro Gustavsson crowd lobbying for their goldenboy. Now that he's in, there will be more focus on the team in front of him, namely Zaitsev. Zaitsev isn't a problem for Murray, only Gustavsson. There's no predicting what the Sens will do with Murray, but they aren't trading a good asset with him for that package. Save me from the arguments, you want to make the trade because the assets you're receiving are better than you're giving, and that's why Ottawa doesn't do it. There's no need for Strome if Stützle is a centre, and they don't want the other two pieces.

How long is TJ out?

Im the CEO of the Gustavsson fan boy club. Been since last year.

I've liked Gustavsson since he was drafted by Pittsburgh, but in all fairness, he isn't elite, Murray can be.

The 1st thing to admit for OTT fan base is the Melnyk is cheap. Then it's not a far leap at all to suggest that if he's saving $6.5M...that means he might spend $6.5M on an area of need vs an AHL goalie. YES, I see POTENTIAL value in the trade. Key key emphasis on potential. This could very easily be the wrong move for the Hawks.

It shouldn't be too much longer. I don't have any recent updates though.

Gus is elite . Doesn’t help when the defence is garbage and give up so many high scoring opps. But yeah he’s elite

While an interesting idea, it doesn't leave the hawks with much wiggle room in free agency to improve. Let's face facts, this team is icing two 4th lines. I think the best bet the hawks have would be to sell this deadline, Columbus is miles ahead of them and will continue to improve with next year's 1st as well (Fingers crossed it's in the top 2 somehow). However at this point, they can't focus on where that pick ends up, they need to figure out how to complete a one year retool to make this offense more relevant. I don't think Matt Murray helps any of their needs in the coming seasons. Lankinen has been good and there's several goaltenders that are UFAs this season.

There's a couple things that go into this.

*I'm not "fearful" of bonus overages, but it's something I'm focused on. Right now the Hawks have zero cap space and there will certainly be some amount of bonuses even for games played. Trading Shaw away and getting ourselves out of the LTIR usages could save us cap next year that'll likely be equal to the $1.25M delta in cap space. Could be better, could be a little worse, but certainly needs to be considered. This leaves the $1.25M cap hit in (2) years from now. I think with Toews/Kane/Connolly off the books we can find $1.25M in cap and still get players.

*That 2022 OTT 2nd will be a pretty good pick. OTT will certainly like saving $6.5M in cash.

That's fair, i'm not really worried about the bonus overages either. Moving Johnson for a bigger contract is my main concern. It doesn't help the future outlook much, and it'd be easier to sign Lankinen to ~$3M a year and find UFA goalie for a similar price to have a 1A-1B tandem. I get that 2nd round pick would be decent, but there are other ways to get a good pick that could be explored (Kubalik trade, selling De haan and Strome, selling Fleury as you did here).

This is elite



Trying a new site, I hope this works

This is elite, and this isn’t Gustavsson

@csick I wasn’t sure if you got tagged when I finally got it to work

Are you cherry picking specific games over two different seasons?

It's the stretch from when the new goalie coach was hired, and the Sens held Murray out a couple extra games, through to the Kreider knee to the head, but it's meant to show what elite looks like. This wasn't a 19 saves on 20 shots period, it was 7 games.