Washington and St. Louis trades aren't happening. Kyrou is a future stud while Maroon can't even put up good #'s this season with McDavid at his side.

Even in this down year, Maroon would be 4th on goals on STL (3rd most for wingers after Tarasenko and Schwartz), so he would definitely improve their top 6 for a playoff run. And he hasn't played nearly as much with McDavid this season. Plus, I added a 2nd round pick with Maroon, so they can recoup their young prospect soon. Also, Maroon is probably more than a rental in STL as that is his hometown and his young son lives there. I'm sure he'd sign at a reasonable rate for a long-term contract. also Kyrou appears to be on the trade bait list (google TSN's trade bait list). I read an article where STL GM said that he realizes he might give up one of his "big Four" prospects (Thomas, Kyrou, Thompson, Kostin) to improve the team for a Cup run.

As for Washington, you may be right as it might be hard to fit Russell under cap, even after retaining 500k. But I've read that the caps are looking for a veteran D for their Cup run and Russell fits the bill. He's leading the league in blocked shots at 3 per game. Orpik would be the next highest at 2.2/gp. Russell would be 3rd on WSH in hits/gp after Orpik, Orlov and Niskanen. He'd be 5th in TOI/GP so he'd fit in their top 5 at 19:00/gp after Carlson, Orlov, Niskanen, and Orpik who plays 20:10/gp. The next highest in WSH is Djoos with only 14:08/gp, so Russell would solidify their 3rd pair and allow them to rest their top 4 a bit more. Bowey coming the other way is 6th in TOI with 13:42. Russell would be the 3rd highest scoring D in WSH with 21 pts sp far. Carlson has 47, Orlov 22 (omly 1 pt more), Niskanen has 19 pts. After that it drops off to 14 for Djoos, 12 for Bowey and 8 for Orpik. So I think Russell could be pretty valuable for a WSH playoff run. And he's not a rental and $3.5 per is a reasonable cap hit for that player. Again sending a 4th pick to WSH for a 6th pick to even things up a bit. Also taking back Connolly who costs $1.5M in exchange for Cammalleri who they'd only be paying $500k after salary is retained. Connolly may be a tough sell. I didn't realize that he was actually socring at an okay pace this season. IF Connolly was a sticking point I'd take another contract back to make it work. Hmmm. I may try to edit that one.