Calgary getting zero 1st round picks for their top UFAs sounds like a non-starter to me

On the other hand, the Edmonton offer looks a lot like a Holland move. Except he wouldn't have the wherewithal to ask for the 4th.

Very interesting. I think Chicago seriously considers this offer.

Cristall is a 1st round talent. I don't have a dog in this fight so I'm not biased but as a Chicago fan I wanted Cristall. He's outperformed his draft position this season.

Edmonton accept

Hawks accept but I don’t see the Caps considering this proposal.

Chicago would turnaround retain 50% on Kuznetsov and get what they can for him.

Holy hell what terrible trades for the Caps. They easily say no to CHI and CGY, maybe they take EDM.

CHI takes that and runs. What a steal. Caps would never do that.

This is far from ideal for Washington. They’d never do the CHI trade, Kurashev isn’t worth 2 1st and they won’t pay to move Kuznetsov. The EDM trade is ok but no thanks to Lindholm. He’s not what WSH need.

*MASSIVELY* outperformed. Leading up to the last draft I always said teams would regret not drafting Cristall, and I still wholeheartedly believe that.

Me too!

CHI absolutely accepts. I think a lot of people in the comments are completely ignoring other valuable aspects of the trade as a whole, like creating $6M in cap space, but this still definitely favors CHI.

Still a head scratcher CHI didn't grab him. He's best buds with Bedard and those 2 would have cooked together.

Right? I mean... I love Gajan, and Kantserov and Misiak are ok too, but Cristall is beyond all of them, IMHO, and I believe Gajan still would've been there at 44th, or even 51st OA if we didn't trade it to Philly for essentially nothing.

Edit: I was actually pretty livid once CHI started drafting on day two. In the end they did get a lot of nice players, but they still left a lot of value on the table. We could've had Cristall, Rehkopf, and still probably drafted Gajan Kantserov and Misiak, honestly. Although, we might've missed on Lardis unless he slipped even further.

Caps are not in the position to do that Calgary trade. What you have here is emptying the prospect pool to get what, maybe playoffs? A serious cup contender does that Calgary trade. Caps are on the cusp of a rebuild and should be selling expiring players and getting another top player in the draft. Ovi, Carlson, Kuzy, Oshie are all on last legs. Not trying to be a bummer but am being realistic.

I was pissed they kept passing on Lardis, thank goodness he was still there in the 3rd round

The knocks on Cristall were size and skating. That's why he was taken #40 just a few months ago. Has he grown since then? Has he drastically improved his skating abilities? If the answer to both questions is "no", then his value won't have changed much in the past 6 months. Every NHL team already knew he could score in junior, but without size & skating ability the concerns that those skills won't translate remain.

His skating was never as bad as a guy like Corey Pronman made it seem. Acceleration and/or top speed aren't quite as important, but by all accounts he has improved in both areas. His skating combined with his puckhandling ability was always fantastic in tight spaces though. He was knocked way too hard for those things, I think. I still like him. Who knows though... He could get to the pro level and his game falls apart. You never know.

I get the size issue and I've heard his skating wasn't a strength. Those are two of the top things the Hawks have targeted recently. I do know he put on about 10lbs of muscle last off-season. Skating might still be a concern though. Sometimes I get stuck on stats while Hawks brass look more at how their game and attributes will translate to professional hockey. Kind of like how I had Gabe Perrault over Oliver Moore in last year's draft. I still cringe when I see Perrault dominating at World Juniors while Moore was merely a "role player" type.