Hawks decline. Keep your prospects and send chicago the 2nd for taking dvoraks cap hit. You get future considerations in return. Saying a player can be flipped at the deadline does absolutely nothing to his value right now.

Or...
The Habs attach a 2nd to Dvorak and keep their two bottom of the roster players the Hawks don't want anyway. The Hawks will keep the late 2nd two years from now.

Don’t think the canes are going to move Necas in a deal for third pairing dmen and prospects/late firsts. In totality I’m sure the value is fine here but I’d bet the canes either keep Necas at this contract and give him top line minutes or trade him in a package to get a top 4 RD or a top 6 upgrade. Finding third pair dmen is easier than either of those.

Would you prefer a deal centered around Mike Matheson? Even though he's a LHD? Something like Matheson+Barron+PIT 2nd (2025). I think the value is pretty similar but thought that Tulsky would like Harris and Kovacevic as they've had really good possession numbers together on a bad MTL team plus picks and prospects are good to have

Harris doesnt do much for the canes. smaller defenders struggle in this system.

I don't thinks the Habs will have to pay to dump Dvorak. He has one year left at around 4.5 mil. I used the Hawks as a placeholder team but I think one of SJS, CHI, UTH, could easily take him and flip him at the deadline. He's not a bad player but has been a terrible fit in MTL. A 2nd was obviously ambitious but one can hope since Bergevin gave up a 1st and 2nd for him (sigh)

I wouldn’t. Again, that doesn’t really help the canes bc it’s solving a hole that doesn’t exist and then leaving them with less space than they had to solve the holes that still exist. I don’t think MTL and CAR make sense unless there’s a third team involved or CAR has a deal in place to immediately flip the futures they’d get in a MTL Necas deal for something they’ll actually need.

So in that case the original deal is better. I'm assuming this would happen during the week of the draft, so you can flip the 26th overall pick + Mesar + Barron + whatever else you'd like into a top 4 RHD at the draft and keep Harris on your 3rd pair (at 1.4M) and Kovacevic as a 7D (at 750k) and I think Canes fans would really like both guys. Like Habs fans aren't eager to trade them, just have such a surplus at D right now.

Maybe but I think those types of deals are rare in real life and thrown in a lot of ACGMs on this website. It’s harder to actually make those work and time them up which is why teams don’t do them that often. I just don’t see it happening and think there are easier deals to be made with direct value versus canes having to do extra leg work to find something that makes sense.

Utah, VAN, Philly off the top of my head make a lot of sense.

Durzi, Hronek, or...?

Sure, those guys or schmaltz Crouse TK farabee frost etc. lot of different types of deals and probably missing some guys/teams but you get the point.

It's not just the $4.5m cap hit for Dvorak. He has a $5.75m actual salary for next season. Don't care how you want to look at things - Dvorak is not a $6m player. And I don't think the number of teams willing to PAY FOR a $4.5m 3rd line C is all that many. Chicago will take Dvorak - with a 2nd attached. If Montreal feels he still has positive value in a trade, then try another team.

I don't think the habs should pay to dump him either. They have other way worse cap dumps to worry about like Anderson and Gallagher. Save the assets for now and next offseason they might be able to unload one of those boat anchors and have dvorak come off the books. Then they could finally start building around all those young defenders

I was hoping to start doing that now. There isn't a spot for him on this roster without him blocking a young guy and he clearly isn't a fit. But it's good to see how other teams fans view him. Guess we'll just have to suck it up for a year.