Did Hughes get fleeced in the Weber trade

Team: 2023-24 Montreal Canadiens

Initial Creation Date: Jul. 28, 2023

Published: Jul. 28, 2023

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

So Hughes traded Weber for Dadanov in a one for one deal, here is the breakdown of those contracts:

SHEA WEBER
- Cap Hit: $7.86M
- Term Remaining: 4 years
- Total Salary: $2.4M (LTIR 35+ Insured at 60%)

EVGENI DADANOV
- Cap Hit: $5M
- Term Remaining: 1 Year
- Total Salary: $6.5M

We also know what the cost was to dump each of these players based on 2 seperate trades:

SHEA WEBER
- Traded to Arizona with a 5th round pick for Dysin Mayo.

EVGENI DADANOV
- Traded to Anaheim (vetoed by the league afterwards due to Dadanov's NTC) with a 2nd round pick for John Moore and Ryan Kesler's LTIR contracts (estimated total salary remaining of ~$1.1M LTIR insured).

Therefore this is what the trades should have been...

To Arizona:
- Shea Weber ($2.4M remaining on LTIR)
- 5th Round Pick

To Montreal:
- Dysin Mayo ($2.85M remaining over 3 years, but a depth RD... basically do this instead of signing Brady Keeper)

To Vegas:
- Paul Byron ($560k remaining on LTIR)

To Montreal:
- Evgeni Dadanov ($6.5M Salary)
- 2nd round pick

Basically (while still trading Weber and Dadanov) the habs should have ended up with Mayo and a 2nd round pick while dumping Byron in exchange for a 5th round pick... Vegas are the true winners of this trade, as they ended in dumping a $5M cap hit for the mere cost of a 5th round pick while getting a depth roster player back in return.

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