we miss leo k
Joined: Feb. 2018
Posts: 6,028
Likes: 5,148
Truly, Lou could never get any of these teams to agree to these deals because they are...pretty bad for every team not based in New York.
-If Ottawa's trading their top RHD, a pending UFA, why would they be interested in getting Varlamov back? They already have Cam Talbot & Anton Forsberg under contract this year, and Varly's a pending UFA so it's not even like they have the bonus of having a Talbot replacement for '23-24 ready. And Ottawa's sending back a 4th? Why?
-This deal comes closest of the three, but again - there's not enough here for a team trying to rebuild. The 2023 1st is nice (and personally for the Isles I think it should be completely off the board - they haven't kept a 1st rounder since 2019) but Beauvillier is past the point of being able to be considered a "young" asset. Including Panik in the deal makes zero sense because he's not even playing in North America this year, but his cap penalty is miniscule. And St. Louis sending back an asset while retaining is too much value for the Blues to give up. This offer gets beat by any team who includes any sort of U23 prospect instead of a $4M middle 6 roster player.
-If there is *any* team that knows there's no such thing as having too many goalies come the playoffs, I think it would be the Hurricanes. I can't see any reason for them to trade Raantaat this point - they're in first place, they're very clearly a Cup contender, and it makes no sense for them to be cashing in pending UFAs for future picks (and I'd argue that this deal probably isn't enough for them to move Raanta anyways.)