Making sense

I'd do this in a heart beat.

I agree with your Beaulieu assessment. Mark my words he'll never be more then pretty much what he is right now. Trade him while his value is as high is it probably will be.

Gunnarsson is a consistent and quiet 2/3 LD that is proven, but he still fights for ice time with more physical options on STL's D. I would hope that STL protects Edmundson (and Bouwmeester and Pietrangelo), so Gunnarsson may be expendable. Relatively friendly cap hit of 2.9M. Probably costs a 2nd or 3rd unless there's a prospect that GM Armstrong really liked.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree re Gunnarsson. Need a higher profile guy, logging big minutes and putting up minimum 30/35 points. Beaulieu is proven enough at a young age to be a 20 point guy, stands up for teammates, and decent in defensive zone. He's a very useful player, but just based on Habs needs at the moment, something more is needed.

That's fair. Gunny is about the furthest thing from game changer. Maybe NSH will shuffle things before the expansion and Ekholm would be available. He sounds like what you're asking for.

Great trade.

I would keep beaulieu, I think if he played with weber, we would realize he's the habs most dynamic defenseman offensively. Markov is the best offensive dman, but beaulieu is a guy who can get the puck in his own end and take it all the way to the other end of the ice. I think he would compliment weber really well and they'd provide a lot more offense than the weber-emelin combo currently is. They'd give up some more goals but recently it's been offensive struggles plaguing the team.

As for losing emelin, that's the reality of the expansion draft. It sucks, but Sergachev will have a good shot at making the team next year and should help the depth on the left side so I'm not really worried about next year at all.