Im a habs fan and i would never give up a 1st 2nd and 3rd for Draisaitl

I would without much hesitation. He will be a premier, probably top 15 center in the league for the next 15 years with great size. You're not gonna get that anywhere else and certainly not with picks in the 20-80 range (unless you're crazy lucky).

If I'm not mistaken, the compensation for a $7.5m contract is higher than that...at least, it was last year (two 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd).

That being said, I wouldn't have any problem giving that away for Draisaitl, given our recent draft history. If we can't develop those picks into good NHLers, then might as well trade them for one. Not sure if I like him enough to offer $7.5m though...and I surely wouldn't sign Kovalchuk, as this would leave the Habs with no room for Pacioretty and Price's contract extension, the following two years.

FYI, there is a slight twist in determining compensation..

"For the purposes of annual salary determination, the total dollar amount of the deal is divided by either five or the length of the contract in years, whichever is lowest. If the offer sheet was for a contract of longer than five years, that calculated number will be higher than the actual average salary of the contract"

The Cap hit could be 7.5m for the length of the contract, however I believe its all based on his Avg Salary and 5 years...chances are t hat jumps him up into the next bracket of comp of Two firsts, a second and third-round picks. Its not as straight fwd as it used to be

Interesting roster...on paper. I say no to Kovalchuk..too old and habs need a legit 1-2 down the middle. Habs shouldn't wait for Galchenyuk to eventually pan out. They need stability asap. The thing about Draisaitle is that Edmonton can possibly match that, but you can offer less to Wennberg like 6 mill and Columbus still wouldn't be able to match it cause they're so cap strapped. I think Wennberg wouldn't turn it that down either...7 years. Personally I don't want to give any picks away at the end of the day. BTW you only have 21 players signed and barely any cap space left. I think the cap is gonna go up by 1.5 mill at least

Good call on Wennberg man, I didn't realize Columbus was so cash strapped for next season. I wonder if they might try to trade someone else to make some room for him, but that might actually be pretty tough since a lot of their guys have no move clauses. Very interesting... They might just bite the bullet on Wennberg and trade him or take compensation, then roll with Dubinsky and Dubois next season. Didn't watch a ton of Columbus this season but by all accounts Wennberg is a very responsible player who is really creative and can log big minutes, sounds like Julien's type of centerman. This might definitely be the best offer sheet/trade candidate for Berge.

The compensation for LD would be 4 first. The value is based on total contract divided/(contracts years up to 5)

Math would be 7.5*7/5 = 10.5 (limits for that level is 9.31mil +)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offer_sheet

Thanks for the link...are the brackets still the same for this year ?

NP. i can't take full credit as someone else brought to my attention also.

I not 100% sure but. I'm sure it equates to some percentage of the cap. Given it only rose 3mil the number probably didn't change too mich