The year after, we'd use some of those guys in the trades and/ or use juolevi, pettersson, demko, lind, dahlen, gaudette, chatfield, holm, goldobin, boucher, pouliot... And/ or whoever we pick up in the 2018 draft especially with all those picks we'd have after this. And we'd also easily and happily outbid anyone for guys like Carlson or Tavares. .....aaaahhhh... Perfect world. as for the lower limit cap issue, this is a 20 man roster so a few guys would need to be called up anyway and the dorsett deal can always be done later too.

As you go down the list the deals get more reasonable. I have to air on the side of most of these would never happen, here's why:

1. Gudbranson, a bottom pairing Dman is not going to fetch a top prospect AND a 3rd round pick, at this point the Canucks will be happy if they just get a 3rd rounder for him.
2. Hutton is entering his prime but not worth a budding prospect and 1st rounder in Juulsen and a 5th rounder, as much as I like Hutton, that's serious over payment by the Habs. He'll probably return a 2nd tops.
3. If salary wasn't a thing this might work. Pens are looking for a 3rd line center which Gagner could fill, but they are only $750k away from the cap and Gagner is $3.45M.
4. Could work, but I don't get this trade for VGK, they don't gain anything by taking on Dorsett's contract.
5. Del Zotto is simply not worth 2 2nd round picks.
5. Edler has a full NMC so that's a non-starter, but even if he did there's no way Dallas is trading their #3 overall pick for a guy who would play 2nd pairing minutes on their team.
6. I actually like this trade for both teams. The Jets have the cap space too to make it work.
7. I like this trade for the Canucks, but I don't know if the Coyotes would like to have a 1A-1B with Raanta and Markstrom
8. Could work, but I don't think NYI sees Nilsson as an upgrade over what they have now.
9. The Canucks would have to sweeten the deal a lot of get Dell from SJ. If Jones got injured and they only had Bachman as their backup they'd be completely screwed haha.

I kind of agree. But let's be honest as hockey fans, we've all seen deals that seemed questionable to us before. Plus defence is the most valuable position right now, defense, centre, winger, goalie... In that order. So that's why the first few deals may seem less reasonable compared to when you go down the list. If I was the GM though I would try and get the most of these players but at the end of the day would want to see them gone even if it is just a second for Hutton for example. As for the goalie things, do you think Bachman for gudlevskis and nilsson for dell instead, I though of it later and I think it's maybe better especially since you basically agree.

I think Bachman for Gudlevskis would make much more sense as well as Nlsson for Dell as those are much closer to lateral moves for the organizations involved. In year's past, I agree with you that there has been a premium on Dmen, but this year with Johnson asking for a trade and McDonagh looking like he is open, the amount of quality D available is driving the price down for B-level players like Hutton IMO.