If Columbus is pushing to a playoff spot I’d guess they go after a defenseman first as they have a lot of young forwards and they would have to be producing to make a move toward the playoffs.

Agree with the CBJ making a surprise push for the playoffs. We would probs make this trade depending on if we have an injury or 2.

avs pass. byron sucks

A team will take him on for that price.

i have my doubts. he's not healthy enough and he's a $1m player. maybe for future considerations.

If he plays healthy all year someone will want a speedy PK guy who can play in the bottom 6. You're right about health being an issue but if that can be put behind him then I think this would be a fair price.

still way to much. maybe a 5th if you're lucky. a 7th or future considerations would be more appropriate.

Byron & Drouin are both guys who need to put at least 50ish games in by the deadline to get a return. If Byron comes back and plays the way he has over the past few seasons, he probably maxes out around a 5th if you're doing full retention - Vlad Namestinkov is a better version of what Byron is and he only got a 4th this past deadline when he was retained down to $1M.

Drouin is a tougher nut to crack because he is a decent playmaker when he's on the ice and has more offensive upside that your usual cap dump/retention players at the deadline. He has to show that he's healthy and can be a top 6 contributor though, because his cap hit with full retention is still $2.75M. I think the Max Domi trade from this deadline is a decent comp for him - right down to bringing a third team in to retain him further down to $1.375M for a contender. I wouldn't be surprised if he brings back value equivalent to a 2nd, but I think Montreal is splitting that up with another team doing some cap eating for them.

He’s only managed to play around 49% of the possible regular season games over the past 3 seasons. Maybe at the trade deadline if he doesn’t get injured and he plays real well you may get a 3rd or 4th but I wouldn’t get my hopes up he makes it that long into the season without injury. He just hasn’t been that lucky

He's never been the same since Weager knocked him out a few years ago. Nothing but bad luck since then

Yep; I would count that as the one scenario in which we give some consideration to picking up Petry. But not Dadonov.

Don't think Columbus would be willing to part with what it would take to get Petry

I do feel bad for him. He’s not a bad player … he just can’t stay healthy which makes him hard to rely on