Take out Pearson and Jensen, change the 1st to a 2nd. That’s the most I’d do from the Caps perspective.

Jensen was the right half of the Caps shutdown pairing and was great in that role, especially given his salary, and the Caps have no one who can replace him in-house (I like TVR, but he’s never had that kind of role before). He’s not a throw-in, moving him only makes sense if a better version of him was coming back or a team offered a clear overpayment.

Eller + Jensen >>> Pearson + Burroughs, take out lapierre or the first if you want to add that in

You could take out Jensen and Pearson, but I doubt the Canucks would be willing to downgrade to a 2nd.

Maybe take the players out and Canucks add a 3rd

Going off of the Fiala trade that seems like a big overpay. The 19 OA and Faber is roughly equivalent to the 20 OA and Iorio (imo Iorio's the more valuable prospect but let's just call it even). I think Miller's more valuable than Fiala, but is the difference equal to Eller + Lapierre? In retrospect even the Eller+Lapierre+Iorio+2nd package I said was the most I'd do seems too heavy. Maybe a team that's hard up against the cap will blow the Canucks away with an offer for Miller at 50%, but the Caps have plenty of room to pivot to trading or signing for a more expensive option if the Canucks are asking for the moon.

If it helps at all, WSH can keep Eller lol. I don't think Eller carries value, and is treated as a cap dump in this situation to make the numbers work. The Canucks are looking for a right handed 3C, a left handed 33 year old isn't an asset to them.

To the Canucks, I'd assume the difference between Fiala and Miller, plus taking Eller back would be Lapierre. If you kept Eller, it would probably look more like Lapierre+Iorio+2nd for Miller.

This is certainly a worry for Allvin. That deal definitely put perspective out there. I imagine a first, prospect and roster player isn't out of the question. Two prospect is probably unlikely. Pearson alone wouldn't get Iorio or Lapierre. But then again, maybe JT stays looking at the Fiala contract. Maybe he gets 8m and stays and I'd be good with that. Though Fiala had one big year and JT has had a few now.

Part of this deal was freeing up even more cap space for Caps to make even more moves if they wanted to shed Eller but definitely not an issue.

I don't see Eller as a cap dump, it's just that the Caps would be better off trading him to open up 3C for McMichael and gambling on McMichael's upside. I'd peg his value at about a 3rd (Sabres fans generally like the idea of Eller for their '22 3rd for example). Even with two bouts of Covid slowing him down this year he was still a 30 point 3C who played in all situations, 3.5M for a guy like that is pretty reasonable. The Caps just need to swing for the fences with McMichael rather than sticking with a known quantity in Eller. Including him in a Miller trade seems like it makes sense since Eller could at least take some of Miller's old responsibilities and then be flipped for a pick at the deadline.

(Sidenote: Is the handedness of your 3C really a major concern? Looking at the list of right-handed UFA centers the only one I'd say is a 3C is Sam Gagner, so your options are pretty limited if that's a deal breaker.)

It is indeed a concern, as the handedness of the center determines which side of the ice they are better at faceoffs on. The Canucks currently have no right handed centers on their roster, so are particularly weak on faceoffs on one side of the ice. You're right the UFA pool is weak, but that's why they're looking in trades too.

As for Eller, I like him and think he makes a solid 3C! I would say that you'd probably happily keep Eller then, and flip him for a 3rd to BUF! Recoup a pick after trading for Miller. He just isn't a fit for Van's lineup, especially since they're considering moving fwds like Miller, Boeser, or Garland to make cap room. Kinda defeats the purpose if you're bringing in another fwd on a 3.5 cap hit no?

Eller aside... I know guys do better at faceoff on their strong side, I just wonder if it really matters enough to make acquiring specifically a right handed center a priority. When a coach is deciding which line to put out for a specific faceoff, I would think managing ice time and line matchups would take priority of the handedness of the line's center? If the Horvat line's half way through their shift and they just forced an icing but the faceoff's on Horvat's weak side, I don't think Boudreau's pulling them off and sending the Gagner line out to up the chances of winning the draw. The Canucks top 7 faceoff guys were all lefties last year, and that didn't stop the Canucks from finishing 7th in FO%. I think the bigger help would be getting a right handed winger who's decent on draws and playing him with Petterson so that guy and Petterson can just take the faceoffs on their strong sides. The Caps have been doing that for a while with Oshie since Kuzy and recently Backstrom have been terrible at faceoffs. They still suck at faceoffs overall, but probably less than they would otherwise.

Jarnkrok comes to mind as a right handed guy who fills that need. Then the question is what to do with Hoglander?