Laine to the Blues

Team: 2019-20 St. Louis Blues

Initial Creation Date: Jul. 17, 2019

Published: Jul. 17, 2019

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Ok I know this is unrealistic but I thought it would be fun to sandbox. There are two goals here
1) get Laine
2) somehow keep Kyrou
Good luck me, right?

After outcome edit:
What I like - Laine is an upgrade over Schenn + Eddy and well worth losing Kostin and a first. Gaining a guy long term who will pair with Tarasenko as sniper 1a and sniper 1b and getting him both at the likely last time to get him at all during his prime and last time for anyone to sign him under 10M after he came off a down year. Only Blais and Fabbri remain unsigned as forwards next year, both of whom are probably your healthy scratches when everyone is in, allowing you to return the same forward group each of the next two years
What I don't like - having to give up Schenn means not really making the starting lineup any deeper, it's still either one of Sanford, Blais, MacEachern and Fabbri stepping into a full time job if Kyrou makes the jump or two of them if he doesn't. you're looking at having to fill one of the LHD and 7th D (replacing Bouwmeester & Pouloit) at minimum to 1M even after cap dumping Allen next year just to keep Dunn and Pietrangelo(this is of course assumning the cap doesn't go up next year and Pietrangelo and Dunn don't come cheaper than 9M and 6M AAV respectively) . The Blues will have not drafted in the first round 2 years in a row (given they are late firsts, they can trade back into it and they still have Thomas on the roster and Bokk in the minors as first rounders from the last 2 years so they aren't in a lot of pain there and they'd be getting Patrik freaking Laine)

New Edit:
Ok I was trying to do wthis without an offer sheet as they don't happen often and doesn't seem like Armstrong's style (not that I'm assuming this is the most realistic anyway)

If you go by HockeyGraphs contract estimates (which are usually pretty accurate adn have done very well, especially on middle to lower tier players, this offseason, Poink, Connor and Copp should cost just over 12M. Just to make roster size then assuming the Jets pour all minimum contract players to fill the holes you are looking at 700k/player so 3 more at that is another 2.1M
That leaves the 22.8M in cap space ~14.5M as 8.3M for Laine + bonuses etc. realizing bonuses happen that means the Aho deal puts Laine just out of WPGs reach but I'd bet the would figure something out for a few hundred thousand and Laine is worth the second first so a 9M AAV prices them out (and puts the Blues tight for Bonuses but again they can work that out pretty easily the same way QPG can easily work out matching a Aho like deal

Also this somewhat kills my returning forwards assertion because Schenn walks but there is a little more wiggle room to sign or handle the cap space to trade for a center the next year. Hopefully a Nuge rental (and preferably subsequent extension) wouldn't be too expensive

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