Montreal is trying to clear cap space. Retaining Salary does not achieve that.
I like your thought process, otherwise.

In this case MTL clears 9.5M in cap space and retains 5.25M (for 1 year)... so this achieves what MTL needs and signing the replacements Dach, Slafkovsky, & Pitlick will cost significantly less

It’s a very fair offer, but I don’t know if Hextall would be willing to move the first for a bunch of guys on expiring deals. He has a draft pick fetish

What would be the price for drouin at 50% retained alone?

That is a easy pass from Montreal. As much as people **** on Dvorak he is a .5+ ppg centre with elite faceoff skills signed to less than 5 million. He iis easily worth atleast the 1st round pick.

POJ isnt worth much at this point. he is 23 has 20 career NHL games despite Pittsburgh having a pretty pedestrian Dcore that he cant seem to crack. Drouin and Dadonov both at sub 3 million are easily worth more.

Probably a 2nd and a 3rd

I think the point is that we are stacked at Center for the first time in a long while. We also need to move cap out in order to sign Pitlick (who can be an effective 3rd line Center or Winger) and Dach who they plan to play at 2nd line Center as soon as possible.

What the habs are getting in this deal is Cap space & Futures.

You're not even close to get so many assets and so much retention for so little return, habs paid for dvorak (without a contract in place) a 1st and a 2nd and they ain't letting him go unless they get at least that and probably even a bit more, drouin half retaind at the deadline will return a good piece if he's healthy and has a decent enough year (under MSL he could have at meast .65PPG) and dadnov a 20 goals scorer from last year at 2.5M will get at least a 2nd, so in total you're very very short in value going back to the habs

Appreciate your response. The point is the Habs have no money.

Letting Pitlick go for nothing in order to try and get max value on Dadonov is short sighted

Playing 4 rookie defensemen (Guhle, Barron, Harris, Schueneman) in the NHL next season would be disastrous for their development... For what? To try and maximize the return on Drouin at the TDL?

The Habs need cap space badly. They either get it by trading players they care about long term like Anderson, Edmundson, Savard or they trade players on expiring deals with Salary Retention.

I like Dvorak more than most Habs fans. I think he could be our 2C next season so we can shelter Dach. But the truth is we need to retain our young core players more than we need to hold onto vets who are not a part of the future. We will have plenty of chances to get Max value deals down the road. This is more about cleaning up the mess of the previous management regime

You're still doing a fire sale where habs lose badly, habs can clear 2.75M just by sending byron to laval ... it'll be cheaper for the habs to get rid of arima contract (i don't think he has negative value and I'm almost certain if habs waive him he won't make it through and will get picked up)

That is not correct sir. The Habs can clear under 1 million by sending Byron to Laval.

Also... If you look at this market... Dylan Strome is not being qualified by Chicago. This off-season is all about cap space. Those who have it and those who need it. Would love the Habs to pickup Strome, but of course they cannot because they have no money. Strome is an upgrade on Dvorak and the Hawks let him walk as an RFA for absolutely nothing.