A concise "no" will suffice for this.

Sincerely wish you good luck trading 5ths and 6ths for those players!

I think Foegele just adds too much to the logjam of forwards the Habs already have. Would flip him for something else.

Caps hard pass. Mantha is waaaay better than Edmundson and the Caps are stacked at D.

There is no trade where the caps are paying the 40th pick in this draft to move Mantha.

Yeah capitals pass. Horrible trade for them.

To be fair... You are "moving back" 29 spots, not "paying the 40th OA".

Cap relief costs what it costs. The prices are fairly well established at this point.

Assumption here was the caps need cap space to go find a center. But I take your meaning that moving back 29 spots is not worth 2.2M in cap space.

The point would be not to compete next year and just sell cap space for picks

While fair to assume Washington could look to get a center, if that is the case it'll be because Kuznetsov is no longer in the picture, and the need for cap space would already be unnecessary with his 7.8 mil cap hit out of the picture.

Appreciate the dialog. I was thinking more that Backstrom might be moved to the wing or something like that. He does not seem to have the juice to be a center anymore. With his experience a top 6 winger role (taking Mantha's spot) could make sense. Then you can go find a 3C in free agency.

Anyway just explaining my thought process. I don't really have a problem if the Caps are not interested, was just exploring the point that 6-7M in cap space is worth a 1st, 3-4M is worth a 2nd and 2M is worth a 3rd. At least that's what we've seen in recent years.

Alright cool. Don't change anything and expect different results! One less team for the Habs to leapfrog.

I can see the thought, though I can't see them moving Backstrom to wing as it would further diminish the little ability he has left, but it isn't the most unreasonable idea I've seen regarding Backy by a long shot. As you noted, he's lost some juice since the hip resurfacing, and I think he won't be able to succeed in a top 6 role due to that regression.

I bet he puts up more points than Mantha at least? What do you have to lose really? You're either still trying to win and the 29 spots in the draft don't mean a whole heck of a lot, or you are blowing it up.

If we go simply off of both player's pace before Mantha was scratched, Mantha was on pace to healthily outscore Backstrom even without PP time and with Backstrom on PP1, so I don't think it's necessarily worth the risk to hope that a player coming off a surgery only one other player ever played after (JovoCop iirc) over someone that looked good before Laviolette turned him into a scapegoat just to move down and pick up a defenseman that Washington doesn't really need. Worst case scenario, I'd say they move Kuzy and Mantha still struggles, allowing McMichael/Frank to get the spot and letting Mantha walk in FA in order to facilitate Wilson and Sandin extensions. But, in a good world, Mantha plays well defensively like last year and is deployed in the top 6 (and not on a defensive 3rd line) and scores well while receiving PP2 time, and at this point I'd say its worth the risk.

Sounds reasonable. I, and forgive me cause "what the heck do I or anyone really know", don't project them making the playoffs in this conference with that team. Ovie can do a lot, but only so much...

Edmundson would make the Caps so much freakn worse.

And believe me lots of changes are coming. New coach, lots of trade, plenty of things will change.

We don’t need to move Mantha for cap relief, and if we do decide that’s a route we want to look at, we’ll hold onto him if this is what the cost actually is. It’s not worth mortgaging the future to move one year of a player who realistically could bounce back under a coach that doesn’t completely botch his ice time and deployment