god no

Trading away the future (our top prospect and 2 x 1sts) for an overrated, injury prone LHD in an area which is not a current priority. Not good

Arizona accepts before you have a chance to reconsider - this is a crazy overpay. I'd assume at this point a 1st/prospect/young roster player is a good base to build off of, with maybe throwing in an extra 2nd or 3rd if you want to use the '24 1st instead of this year's. Something like a '24 1st/Toronto's '23 3rd/Niemela/Engvall probably gets it done. I don't think you need to throw in Knies, and you definitely don't need to throw in Knies and a pair of 1sts at this point.

I'd also argue - how vital is Chych to the Leafs at this point? When everyone's healthy, I assume you're rolling with Rielly/Brodie, Gio/Liljegren, and Sandin/Holl, with Jordie Benn as your 7th D. Not saying Chych doesn't make that group better, but even the revised package is a huge price to pay for a pretty deep group already. Wouldn't it make more sense to target a pending UFA veteran like Dmitry Kulikov/Trevor van Riemsdyk/Justin Braun to just give you more depth at a fraction of the price? Toronto's a top-5 defensive team as it is right now - I don't see a huge need to devote so many assets to strengthening a strength, ya know?

hmm okay 1st 3rd niemela i would be pretty okay with that
the part of chychrun i really enjoy is the 3 years at a good price for a good dman
i like holl alot
but the idea of having the entire dcore locked up for both this and next year without worry is appealing
ive been out of the loop on ol chychrun so i basically just ran with the price i last remembered
whats the over under on them retaining salary if i went 1st 2nd and topi instead of a 1st 3rd and topi do ya think

I could see Arizona being hesitant on retaining on Chych, if only because they're already dedicating one of their three retention slots to the retention they did on OEL's trade to Vancouver - this team is assumedly going to be signing guys to one year deals and flipping them at the deadline, so retention slots are important to have open. I think it if it was 1st/2nd/Niemela they'd take back more bad cap instead of retaining - not sure who else you'd throw in the pile with Engvall but I'd think that's the more likely pathway than retaining on Chych for 2 more years after this.

hmm that makes sense i always forget about the retention limits teams have
i also prefer shipping kerfoot instead of engvall with the extra salary gone the team can have a larger active roster
i feel like engvall is better defensively than kerfoot
and neither produce enough for me to feel bad about them going anyway.
also based on what i saw above chychrun is apparently injury prone but looking at his injury history it only looks like hes really been injured twice? am i missing something?

Can't see Arizona retaining on Chycrun.

he's missed a decent amount of time in every season he's played except the COVID-shortened year (63/70 GP) and the bubble season (20-21) when he played all 56 games. He had some bad injury luck in his second and third season, missing the starts of both seasons recovering from surgeries, and then missed the beginning of this year recovering from wrist & ankle injuries. I think any acquiring team is gonna have to figure in some missed time for him, even if they do it pre-emptively (the dreaded "load management") to keep him fresh for a potential playoff run, and that does have an affect on his value.

End of the day, though, he's a guy who can easily fit on most team's 1st or 2nd pair, and can play all three parts of the game. He's paid like a high-end second pair guy, which does have some value - if you can cross your fingers and hope that you only lose him for 10-15 games each year, I still think he's worth that package. But it's definitely come back down quite a bit from where it might have been last season.