No thanks.

Cool. What if we drop Ferland?

Edit: or add a 2nd?

nisk and carlson > hamilton .......why bother trading young talent for a guy who wouldn't be any better than a 3rd pairing rhd.....unless you plan to not sign carlson....then i guess this would be okay but seems like a lot to downgrade

I would consider trading Dougie & Ferland to Washington for Burakovsky, Vrana, Vanecek, 2019 1st & 2020 2nd.

EDIT: I know it's an overpayment but that's what you gotta do if you want our young top pairing d that we don't actually want to give up. So it just doesn't seem like a realistic deal.

I agree that Niskanen is better at each end of the ice right now, but he's older, and having three excellent two-way rhd should make the Caps better at evens?

But this is the most I'd trade for one, for Caps reasons. Hamilton got some decent offense going this year, but Bowie will develop if he gets minutes.

if you do this might as well not sign jc or trade nisk to somewhere for a 1st....or a mcdonogh return

I like the idea of overloading a certain position with talent, if you can fit it under the cap. As long as you can still fill out the rest of the roster, teams with a lot of depth at one spot do well; earlier Hawks teams had Hjalmarsson, Campbell, Keith, and Seabrook all playing at a top pair level. Pens with Crosby, Malkin, and Staal (1st, 1st, and 2nd line centers) did pretty well.

The other reason not to trade much more than, from the Caps' perspective, Grubauer and Burakovsky, to get a young top pair D is that they could just sign an older top pair D like Green, or an older second pair D like Cole, this summer, while trading Grubauer for picks and keeping Burakovsky.

Since Vrana is the reason that Burakovsky might be traded, the idea of sticking them both together in one deal hadn't occurred to me. I don't think there's any potential replacement anywhere in the organization if both leave.... they'd be stuck overpaying for a slower UFA 2L.