Canes decline. The Philly 2nd is basically a late 1st. For a dude that you got on waivers? Easy pass. He's not good enough to justify it

If we wanted Kapanen we would have taken him for free instead of asking Pittsburgh to pay to move him

Absolutely not on that Buch trade, it's brutal. And I'm not interested in splurging on a winger, let alone a question mark winger who is pretty slow, and there's no use whatsoever for Elliott. If you're looking past next season for the sake of youth, what could possibly be the cause to block Hofer from getting PT?

I think hofer should split time. Putting a young, not quite ready goalie in a position to take 40 shots a night with a ton of those being high danger cause our defense in front of him is trash. Don’t want to derail development by putting him in a losing situation. And what do you see as the future for buch? No way we’re competitive for the next 2 years. Do we resign him to a high aav he’s gonna want? Do we just let him walk? What would be best in your opinion?

1 - Huh? The Blues do not allow 40 shots per night, and Hofer has yet to face 40 shots in a game in seven starts. In fact, he's faced a hair over 30 per start. And losing a few games does not derail development. What does derail it is keeping him in the AHL when he's ready to adapt to the NHL.

2 - No way we're competitive in the next two years??? What???

Lots of teams have off years where everything goes pear shaped, man. And if they can manage to switch in, say Gavrikov, for either of the LDs, they'll be quite competitive again right away. I know we're used to be having good regular seasons and I know we're conditioned to think everything will crash and burn, but folks need to take a breath and stop shoveling dirt on the team.

Any way you slice it, that Buch trade would be a self-fleecing. Taking Granlund damn near eats up that 24 1st by himself, and Buch is definitely not worth less than one mid-1st rounder, '23 draft or not.

Oh... and if we really want to offer sheet somebody, we need to offer sheet Byram. Not a winger gamble. Boost our roster by stealing from the Avs. A double win deluxe.

Your obsession with its gavrikov blows my mind. It’s not gonna happen, we have the worst D core in the leauge just about considering the cap it takes up. This wasn’t a one off year, the team isn’t built to win a cup. It’s as simple as that. Those contracts aren’t gonna be movable and we’re in no position to sell assets to try and hang on and be competitive next year.

Heh. Worst D core in the league? Do you even hear yourself? That;s not even close to being accurate, statistically or otherwise. Climb down off the ledge, man. That team was damn near the same roster that looked very much like knocking off the Avs before Kadri took Binnington out a few months earlier. It was a weird season, with lots of clashing and compounding issues, the most pertinent of which was the way the whole team tried to get by because they're good instead of actually executing the system and playing well. Almost no one on the team played to their expected/accustomed level. And the defense issues were certainly not just a matter of defensemen under-performing. They had lots of help from the forwards, especially early in the year when it was really bad. And let's not spare Van Ryn and Army and even Chief for the problems at the back. They had their whole feet up in that pie.

Seattle could have had Tarasenko for free and the Blues wound up getting a first round pick for him.. just pointing out things change

Sure but the Canes are moving what will be a top 5 2nd rounder for a guy they could have had for free earlier. We’ll just re-sign fast or keeping puljujarvi