Dont think about anything past next season

That's the exact same kind of short-sightedness that left Edmonton with Lucic over Hall.

I'm not moving 7 assets for one player. Eichel is fantastic and so would getting Neal off the books entirely, but Edmonton sheds a lot of long-term value in order to accommodate this trade.

There's also the matter of affording a full NHL roster with this setup: it's genuinely impossible unless you let Nurse walk, which would only be a detriment to the team.

In fairness all 6 of the non James Neal assets in that trade have like a 33% chance of being impact NHLers at best probably one of them ends up really good

Maybe half of them are solid at NHL level

I'd be more worried from Buf perspective naturally

This is so much better than most EDMAGMs as the Eichel return is entirely good not great assets and the term for aging UFAs is closer to where it should be

If they could pull this off ultimately

It'd be decent

They could unload Kassian and sign a cheaper replacement for the steadily aging Larsson also Russell coming off the books will help a bunch

Lots of good cheap assets coming up

Idk not too tricky here

This entire AGM is a farce: most everything expires next year. Is the plan to just cycle out a new roster every season? Why are Larsson, RNH, and Ullmark taking one year deals in the first place? No, they come with term, which makes any flexibility here moot.

I'll focus less on the RFAs given that they have less bargaining power, but what happens if the Yamamoto extension is only a two-year deal? Where's the money coming from now? The cap isn't set to rise for another two seasons and Edmonton has all of its chips in four players (very good ones at that).

Russell and a buried Turris account for half of the minimum cost of Bear and Nurse extensions. Edmonton no longer has the assets to dump Kassian outright, so assuming 50% retention, you can now only afford two of your defencemen. What about Puljujarvi? McLeod? Spare forwards? Replacement defenders or the inclusion of Broberg and Holloway to the main roster? Bonuses?

Looking at things in a one-year vacuum is peak lunacy. The league doesn't exist in individual annual segments. There are longer-term consequences of this trade being ignored here.