Edited May 17, 2018 at 8:38 p.m.
Quoting: marmon725
I haven't heard even the names of our 3C and 4C, which im not sure if that's a good or bad thing at this point for MN but tough to know if they're even NHLers. I like the numbers and term for zuck and dumba, but spurge gone and schenn in makes us worse in the short term, especially if what we get back is only middle six. Getting anything back for Ennis will be tough but I dont hate that move at all. Don't think Kaapo is the answer at backup quite yet I would keep stalock around while looking for a goalie of the future.
TBH, if you don't follow european hockey closely or are not a big fan of IIHF WC, you probably didn't have much chance to hear about them.
So quick description:
Enzo Corvi - 25 y.o., C, currently Davos (NLA), extremely fast skater with good attacking upside and reliable on defense. The biggest plus for me here is, that he's best friend of Nino Niederreiter (they know each other since they were kids) and they have great chemistry between them. If you watch Switzerland play at the WC, he'll be the one player commentators will be saying over and over again. At 1M per year (or possibly even less, since he's undrafted player), the possible upside of having a player to lift Nino Niederreiter up is much bigger than the risk.
Antti Suomela - 24 y.o., C, currently HIFK(Liiga), creative attacking player, top points scorer in Finnish league last season, very precise in the attacking zone, doesn't complicate things too much, might pair up well with Miki Granlund and again, as undrafted player, the risk in minimal.
The defence surely took a hit, but I was very dissapointed with our attacking depth and couldn't think of a way to strengthen the attack w/out damaging the defence. On the other hand, there are still almost 5M left in capspace in this scenario, so there is option to trade/acquire some big name in the season or in free agency.
Keeping Alex Stalock is surely an option, I just wasn't very impressed with him last season and young finnish GKs seem to be proving themselves as solid backups throughout the league (Saros, Koorpisalo)
Also, Kase might be a middle six, but his stats are fantastic given his ice-time and if MIN manages to pull more draft value from the trade as MNBassman suggests, that might be a big gain in the end (given they draft the right kids, which hasn't been always the case)