Mission should be to be awful and finish worst in the league to guarantee one of Bedard, Michkov or Fantilli.

Columbus probably isn't the place to sell Petry to. They need cap space in 24-25 to sign their RFAs and $5 mil on Petry is gonna cost them more than Bemstrom and a 3rd to get rid of.

Or Benson or Carlsson or Dalibor... next years draft is stacked

Honestly anything in the top 5-6 next year is gonna be great.

1-2 are franchise altering, the rest would prob go top-5 this year as underagers

Only bad thing with Michkov is having to wait 3 years for his contract to end in Russia.

Yeah but a team who drafts him is essentially making themselves worse for those 3 years so it actually helps in the long run. Probably better to sign him at 22-23 for an 8 year deal right away at a lower cap than let him build his value in RFA years

He’d still have to sign an ELC when he comes over though. I’m just not a fan of waiting for a guy that might never come here. If he does great, but if not then you’re out a top pick.

Voracek's contract expires before the 24-25 season which gives us over 8 million to work with and the cap should be going up by then. Not saying Petry is the player we need but we can easily fit him in our cap schedule.

24-25 is also the year the player repaymebt is fulfilled so the cap will be over 90 million at that point