I don't think the Isles do that trade (Dobson is as close to untouchable a player as they have), but I think this is probably the first trade proposal I've seen on here for him that made me think twice and not just dismiss it out of hand.

Jackets decline. Even ignoring everything else wrong with the trade, we are not trading for another RD.

Isles don't do this Dobson, Brazal and Sorokin are untouchable. But this is the first Dobson proposal that made me think a little.

I think the biggest impediment to moving Dobson in this deal is that they don't have another defenseman who can play top-4 minutes and provide offense. Pelech, Pulock, and Romanov are all 20-point guys. Reilly (if they re-sign him) could put up more than that, but he's not good enough defensively for a regular top-4 spot. To move Dobson they'd have to sign a guy like Hanifin, but couldn't even do that in this scenario because after adding Connor's contract, they wouldn't have the cap space.

Now, if the Jets wanted to do a deal for maybe Ehlers instead of Connor, with Pelech as the main piece coming back, that would probably work better for the Isles, but I don't know enough about the Jets to say whether that'd be something they'd be interested in.