Trading the 7th OA

Team: 2022-23 Ottawa Senators

Initial Creation Date: May 12, 2022

Published: May 13, 2022

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Dubois should cost less to acquire, should be extendable at a cheaper AAV, AND supplies much more sandpaper to the 2nd line than Fiala.
Buying out White because it would be foolish to wait a year and lose the opportunity to save $10M just to see another season. Too big a gamble.
Keeping Murray but if he manages to stay healthy and is NOT GOOD we can try to move him next summer or just buy him out then.
Getting into the playoffs next season would be a difficult task unless some of the high power Eastern teams have brutal off-seasons or incredible bad luck. I think we need to accept that we may need to be patient for one more year. Signing Dubois for 5 at a reasonable term is still well worth our 2022 1st, truthfully I'd even add Jarventie to the deal if required, or remove the 5th and add Brännström.
At the deadline, if we're not in a playoff spot we should also be prepared to move Connor Brown. It would NOT be realistic to sign him to a new deal as he'll want term and something in the $5M range which OTT should not be giving him. Holden, Hamonic, MDZ and Watson should go too - all of them would be sought after rentals by contending teams. Hell, if we retain 50% on Brown we could easily get a return that slots in immediately (see Nick Paul <<>> Mathieu Joseph + a 4th) .
Knowing that we'll be moving so many bodies out means we need to get JBD, Thomson and Greig into a lot of games before the deadline, but if they aren't dressed in OTT they have to be playing in BEL so keep the roster small so you can move the ELCs up and down as needed. Don't screw it up by signing Gaudette and Gambrell to one way deals. We need to be smarter than that. Those players won't make a difference in terms of where we finish so, if we aren't a playoff team, lets at least be preparing our prospects for the 23-24 season.
And let's totally hang onto our 2023 1st until we know where we're picking.

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