no thanks

God no!

Graves was traded to NJD for Maltsev and a second after the season where he led the NHL in +/-, and had term remaining. But sure, Bellows and Aho are available to be added as fodder.

Columbus declines, if they move Nyquist it’s to get more consistent ice time in the middle and top 6 for players like Johnson, Chinakov, Marchenko and Bemstrom. They aren’t trading him for a player who is over 30 and bordering on being a cap dump.

Graves was traded on the cheap because of the expansion draft.

Doesn't matter though, Devils aren't selling useful NHL players for picks. Playoffs are the target next season, not another building year.

Palmieri is 2 years younger than Nyquist, with a lower AAV, and has 22 points in his 33 games since coming back from injury in January. I'd make the argument that he's probably overpaid but he's too productive to be considered anywhere near a cap dump.

That being said, I'd still say it's a no from both sides. Nyquist isn't better enough for the Isles to give up on a guy that fits their system/chemistry/whatever you wanna call it, and Palmieri's contract doesn't line up with what CBJ's trajectory is the next few years (like you said, they'd rather play the young guys than veterans at this point).

22 in 33 is good, but that doesn’t make up for the 7 in 29 before that, he also has a total of 33 points in 75 games for the islanders. Nyquist has 44 points in 73 games for Columbus this season.

The cap hit is .5 mil in difference but the real money is exactly the same for both players next year at 5 mil.

So you’re right Palmari isn’t a cap dump, but he is bordering on one. He just needs to keep up his current level of play vs going back to what he did to start the season.

I think this is the fairest take. I think keeping up his play will be more likely than not, because prior to his injury he had 1 goal on 57 shots(!) - that's just insanely bad luck, so his good streak in the second half looks like regression to the mean (you can say that, unfortunately, for a lot of the Islanders' players.)