That's honestly not a horrible deal, but Detroit just keeps their 3rd and pays that money to Veleno to be their 4C.

I agree, that could be any team that gives a 3rd round peak for the 3rd-line C with 1.225MM salary cap

Canes pass. A buyout of KK and signing a 2 million 3LD is better than this deal but a good amount

I keep looking at CAR and LAK like, "Which one is dumb enough to not exercise their obvious buyout out of pride?"

KK much easier to stomach than PLD though.

yes, makes sense, but that could be a good idea anyway

Yea that last sentence is the key. Now if Pittsburgh wanted to retain some, I would be okay with a kuzy -graves swap. Or we swap Kuzy for Smith. Pitt gets 1.1 million in cap space, we get the better player. I think Kuzy would be a decent Chicago target. We pay a little bit to move him. Chicago takes the risk of him sucking or getting really good and getting a good ransom at the deadline

Blake is probably getting terminated if he buys out Dubois so it is better for him to just ride that decision to the end.

CAR should not accept that. PIT should not accept the DET trade. Eller is fair cap hit now. Zero reason to eat cap hit for a single 3rd.

Pens should face the obvious - it's time to rebuild. They can do it the same way as Washington by playing prospects next to the old stars. Eller is not really needed for Pens

I agree. But even still, that Eller trade is poor value. Friedman said at the deadline teams were asking about Eller. No reason for them to use a valuable retention slot on him unless the return is better.

Blake should be terminated for making all the moves he did to sign PLD to that albatross anyways lol.

I agree with what you're saying... If Blake admits he ****ed up it's a fireable offense, and there's no way it happens unless he's fired... But he should be fired haha. The man literally restructured his team to build the "Next wave" around a bum that Torts outed as lazy years ago.

Agree with you there. Never thought it made sense for LAK to have interest in him unless it was for a favorable deal and Villardi alone might end up being the best player in that deal. I know he has health concerns but he's been very good when playing. I just don't think he can reverse course on that deal now.

Yeah, the deal was bad… Moving Durzi and Walker, trading picks, and taking on Provorov’s cap retention made it even worse.

The guy straight up may have sabotaged Byfield’s prime years with that stupidity.

no way pens retain on Eller, the center market is dead and he's still a decent 3C