Sunday Boredom

Team: 2022-23 New York Islanders

Initial Creation Date: Dec. 4, 2022

Published: Dec. 4, 2022

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Just kicking ideas around to see how to have cake and also eat it.

OTTAWA TRADE
Senators are more or less done with Zaitsev; you usually don't try and bury $4.75M cap hits if you think the guy's an asset to your team. Josh Bailey, meanwhile, was recently scratched for Ross Johnston (ugh) so it's not hard to see how the new coaching staff values him. This trades two disappointments with similar contracts on the hope that a new team would spark both of them to play better. Bailey adds some more offense to a team desperately missing Josh Norris & Alex Formenton's production, and allows the bottom-6 to line up more naturally (pushes Tyler Motte to the 4th line where he does best and lets you launch Austin Watson into the sun) while Zaitsev allows the Islanders to try and swing the rare "double move", leading to...

CALGARY TRADE
The Flames have been rolling out Michael Stone at RD3 every night. I'm sure Michael Stone is a great guy, but he's no longer an every day player - and sheltering him means that 5 of the Flames' 6 D are averaging basically 20 minutes per night (Zadorov & Tanev are at 19:57 each.) Upgrading Stone to Mayfield lets you roll all 3 pairs evenly and keeps your guys(especially a 33-year old Chris Tanev) fresher for what you hope is another big playoff run this spring.

The return is tough - I think that Mayfield at $725K is easily worth the Josh Manson package that the Avs gave up last deadline; the only problem is that the Flames don't really have a ton of those B-tier prospects like Drew Helleson that the Avs did. I still think there's a couple ways to reach the same value - either a better prospect/lower pick combo like I did here, or add a couple lower tier prospects to a 2nd (something like Jeremie Poirier & Cole Schwindt, maybe?)

ROAST AWAY BABIES

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