For 1 year of Ullmark? No chance.

Bro what?

He's going to say "iT cOmEs WiTh An ExTeNtIoN" but that isn't getting Mercer in the deal.

He would be signed to a long term deal. Say 8mil per year

It is the exact trade proposal from national hockey writer

Nah

8 mill per year extension makes him even less attractive

It sounds like Sweeney wants the farm for Ullmark…and this offer may not even satisfy his price.

Move on then.

And if the goaltending prices are ridiculous, build an elite team elsewhere and go from there.

Dont pay a kings ransom for the most volatile position in hockey.

Of the top 20 goalies in GSAx in 22-23, just 6 ranked in the top 30 this year

Where are all of these reports coming from? Any world where the Bruins get a late 1st round pick alone for Ullmark should have Bruins fans happy. The idea that we could get a cost-controlled NHL center with top 6 upside in addition to the 1st is ludicrous. If Ullmark comes with an extension that NJ likes, that is probably what nets Mercer with no 1st round pick attached if we are lucky.

I laughed at the people who used the "AdIn HiLl WoN a CuP" argument to justify not signing any real goaltenders, and I think the results of that were apparent this year for many teams of just how risky that is. But these reports about what Ottawa or NJ should spend are complete over-corrections to that. Ullmark isn't a generational talent -- he's a top half of the league starter. You might find a desperate GM that will overpay for that at the trade deadline, but definitely not in the offseason.

Was that apparent this season?

If you went into this season with: Filip Gustafsson, Ilya Samsonov, Georgiev, Vitek, Vasy, Sorokin, Saros, Oettinger, etc. you were probably convinced you had excellent goaltending. None of them had great seasons

And in the playoffs, even hellebuyuck completely fell apart.

The list of goalies to play at a high level in each of the last 2 playoffs and regular seasons is like 2 players long.

I don't think your point is exactly counter to mine. I think you are arguing that goaltenders have high variance of performance, and even signing a "good" goaltender provides no guarantees. I don't disagree with that. In fact, I think that a strong D corps is much more important than having a strong goalie, which was always my argument for why the Aiden Hill argument was silly. Vegas had an excellent D corps and Cassidy runs a strong defensive system.

My point is that you can't cheap out in net in the offseason just because of the variance. You can't just hope a middling guy goes nuclear, because the odds are that it won't happen in a sustained manner, and if it does he will likely regress to the mean (or worse) at the wrong time. You also can't run a tandem goalie like a workhorse and give him 75% of the starts. And once you are in season and see a problem, it is going to be difficult to find a true starter or a solid 1B without overpaying. The best time to sort this stuff out is in the offseason, and to seek depth in season as needed.

I think the Red Wings, Kings, Devils, Flyers, Canes, Lightning, and Avs all felt this pain to some extent during parts of the season. In some cases, unpredictable inuries were involved, but the teams still felt the pain of having to trot out low quality goaltending. I think both the Wings and Flyers in particular can point directly at goaltending as the primary reason why they both barely missed the playoffs.

Trade is from “Senators insider” Bruce Garrioch. So, it doesn’t seem as far fetched as you all think. Also, Ullmark was better than all those goalies you site last year as he won the Vezna.
And many teams missed playoffs or were very disappointing in playoffs with terrible goaltending, so many teams will make offers.
Elliot Friedman also has Ullmark bringing back a 1st, a player , and another pick.