If the Larsson contract ends up being a ghost report this forward core only looks worse. It’s gonna really come down to whether or not Zucker can play how a 5.5m contract player should play. If not, we are in deep trouble

Poehling killed the Larsson dream. No money left. Plus he's just adding to the logjam of potential players we need to evaluate but can't with just one roster spot available...Poehling, Nylander, DOC, Puustinen, Hallander and Poulin all need some NHL time soon so we can find out if we've got any future players there or not. Not happening this year lol. Not sure Hex's plan, but he blew up the D without improving the forwards one iota.

Poehling deal doesn’t in any way kill the larrson dream. Poehling is making 750k and that’s the same as anyone else who would have on the roster as a 4th liner/extra

Hextall isn’t done yet, he has something else up his sleeve. People say this everytime. There is still a lot of time left in the off-season

I really hope so because right now I feel great about the D, it’s sunken in a bit and I’m not mad at the trades at all. The forward core is what I’m not liking. It NEEDS and I mean NEEDS an upgrade, whether that be Larsson and another top 9 winger via trade/free agency or if Larsson isn’t signed then maybe we can use that cap space to sign a more impactful forward.

The d core is awesome and a clear upgrade over last year. Petry is still a very, very good player.

How Hextall puts the finishing touches on the forward core may require a bit more finesse than his previous moves. The obvious move is pettersson but that takes away from the d core, and forces smith and POJ to play which is a little risky. When we look back in 10 years I could see us saying “it was a really good idea to send smith back to AHL for that one year”.

The next obvious moves would be dumping one of mcginn or zucker, but that seems unlikely.

That leaves 2 options:

1. Hextall resigns Kapanen and goes bargain hunting for one other forward in FA for cheap

2. Hextall goes for a Brandon Hagel type trade where the player being acquired has value due to their contract. Say a forward on a lottery team where 50% can be retained or a guy who has just exceeded their cheap contract

Alternate option 3: Rodrigues and/or Heinen don’t like what they see on the FA market and come back on slight discounts as they worked well in Pitt

Will be interesting to see how this plays out