Gostisbehere is exactly the type of player the Habs need. The price if that's the case may be too high for us to consider it though.

Juulsen - 26th OA Former 1st rounder
Ylonen - 35th OA, basically a late 1st rounder
2020 1st rounder
2021 3rd rounder

Three 1st rounders and a 3rd is almost the price you'd have to pay to offersheet the best player in the league. If your willing to give that much, might as well offer sheet someone to a unmatchable deal. It'll cost you four 1st rounders but hopefully you'll be a lot better for it and those 1st rounders will all be late rounds where the chance of hitting a star player is diminished.

Look good to me... insert Lehko instead of Ylonen to make sure Phily say yes and keep your 1st pick.

With how good Suzuki And Ratcliffe are playing together in the Owen sound I wonder if the Flyers would look at him as a part of the package? Not sure how high he is valued in Montreal... Just a thought

So Juulsen, Lehko+ 3rd (or a 2nd at most!)

Good point, it looks like an over payment from MTL point of view. I'd leave Ylonen out of the package as a starting point in negotiation just to see how open Philly would be to moving one of their top D-men.

yep this trade works if ratchliffe is part of it

I imagine Habs would draw a line in the sand that would not include Suzuki. But who knows.

I'm not saying they should add him on top of the op, more saying that he would probably be a more appealing center piece to the package then juulsen

I'm not sure you can say he is their top dman. Provorov is 100% their best dman. Ghost is really good though and would be a perfect addition to the Habs. PP specialist and puck moving dman on the left side. Can't get anymore picture perfect than that for the Habs. I think unfortunately Philly wouldn't be willing to move him unless it was an over payment which the Habs should avoid at all costs. This team is still in retool mode and we have some very good prospects on the way. Need to just be patient.

I really like Lekhonen but that may be a reasonable package to get a player of Ghost's level. He might really help the Habs power play, which can't get much worse.

No I understand that, they did just trade their captain for him (plus picks.) Just saying ghost just came off a 65 point season and while he is having a down year this year you can't discredit his previous success. Not too many defencemen can lead a power play and play the game ghost can. Gotta give to get

I'm neither a Philly nor Habs fan. I'd decline if I were Philly.

In most trades the team that gets the best piece wins. Juulsen, looks like an NHL defender. I am not convinced he is an impact defender.
Ylonen: I really can't judge prospects playing in Europe who I haven't followed, but he looks like what he was recently a 2nd round pick (playing in a mens league at Draft +1 but only doing okay)
Mid first, and a mid 3rd.

Ghost is a great defenseman to build around and importantly he's signed long term through his prime at a very good contract and is just 25 years old.

He is essentially being paid like a #3-4 dman and is a borderline #1 dman (likely a very good #2).

My problem with this return, is simply that I don't see a good shot at game breaking talent coming back to Philly

Also to F50Marco, sure, you could offer sheet someone with an unmatchable contract, but then you'd be stuck paying someone like 14 million. here you get a player for 4.5. Also you can call a late first, and early second and a future first, 3 firsts, but the difference is you know what they are. The danger with offer sheeting is there is so much unknown. If you miss the playoffs one of those years and your pick wins the lottery...

No doubt that Ghost is the best single piece in this trade. Question is whether the Flyers scouts believe in Ylonen's potential ceiling and think a 1st round pick around #20 would be worth the gamble in a deep draft. Juulsen seems a safe bet as a solid defensive 3-4 D-man going forward. Good comment though.

We are getting at the motivations to throw a bunch of 1st rounders to the LD problem. Even IF the value is right for Gost. (I think you are very close)

Why the new GM in Philly would risk getting rid of Gost for a bank of maybes to be devellopped in 3-5 years? (Seriously, I don't know the guy..)
Why would Bergevin sacrifice the team's future for THAT guy? (He clearly stated he wouldn't)
Who can we aim for an offersheet? (Only Trouba & Murray. I think Trouba as all about money and CLB would match an offer...)

So it's a no for me. I would like to hear about a smaller deal for Hagg.

Did Ottawa get the best piece in the Duchene trade? Did Calgary get the best piece in the Hamonic trade? Did NJ get the best piece in the Schneider trade?

Your statement only really rings true when a team trades the best player in the deal for multiple lesser players. example: Joe Thornton trade. Tyler Seguin trade. Luongo trade. You should never trade one great player for 3 decent players. Picks and prospects? Those don't qualify. At one point in time Ghost was just a 3rd round pick.

Gostisbehere is a good dman but lets not bust a nut just yet. Any Philly fans want to say he is better than Provorov? Is he even a top 30 dman in the league? Go check for yourself: https://www.capfriendly.com/browse/active/2019/points/all/defense

He is an elite offensive minded dman with below average defensive acumen. Let's not exaggerate here.

As for the offer sheet scenario, my point was just to say that if you're willing to almost give four 1st rounders worth of value for Ghost, why not go the extra mile? Offer sheet a superstar. Yeah you pay him probably too much but I don't know if you noticed but MTL tried to spend a ton of cash this off season and couldn't. No one accepted their offers. So they have a oodles of cap space that they are willing to spend but don't have anyone to spend it on.

I'm not condoning it. Simply stating that if your going to spend that much on a good but not great player, why not spend the small extra (price from a 3rd to a 1st) and get a great player?Doesn't have to be a dman. Brayden Point, Matthew Tkachuk, Patrick Laine, etc etc etc.

Yeah the risk is that you miss the playoffs and they get a lottery pick. You know what can console you at night? One of the guys mentioned above who are all almost certainly better than the player picked in the lottery you missed.

Except the difference is 4 future first rounders have a much higher potential ceiling than Juulsen, and Ylonen. 1 future first rounder obviously washes with 1 future first rounder.

The fact that Juulsen was a first and Ylonen was an early second, is much less relevant once they are who they are.

(besides using the term "first rounder" assumes first rounders are all made equal, and they frankly aren't. Realistically depending on the draft year you probably have roughly the following tiers (though they'll change year on year
first over all (or first two or 3)
The rest of the top 5
Pick 6-10
11-14
15-23
24-35
35-50
51-70
71-90
91-120
Anything later (some studies have shown after the 4th all picks are roughly equal)

How does a future 1st rounder have more potential than Ylonen or Juulsen? Neither picks nor prospects have even reached their potential yet? That makes no sense. What a pick that hasn't been positioned yet has is the possibility of being a higher pick than where those others landed but even than its no guarantee they'll have realized potential......

Regardless, I made sure to say that you'd need to pay more than what was being offered. I didn't say it would be exactly what was offered for Ghost. The point was that if Habs are willing to pay the price mentioned above for Ghost, why not go a little further and give up 4 1st rounders and get a player like Brayden Point for example. Yes the price of 4 1st rounders is more than the offer mentioned above but Point also is >> Ghost.

And you would have to think that a team that is already decent, adding a superstar talent would all but ensure that those 1st rounders would not be lottery picks. Of course there is always the chance they might be. That is a risk that didn't pay off for Ottawa with Duchene but for the most part, when teams trade away 1sts, they don't end up being lottery picks for that team in the future because they generally added a substantial piece to ensure it. (Without having to give up good roster players)

Im assuming that any team that adds a star player will not do worse off then they did previously. Thus negating the chance they'll be a lottery team. But even then, that is partially irrelevant. How many teams out of 31 have drafted superstars in any consecutive 10-31 finish? Don't know if you noticed but most teams 1st rounders over a 4 year span don't equate to a 1 superstar. There's always the chance but that isn't a given. Especially so if that team does well over that 4 year period and the picks end up being late 1sts.

So to me what this says, is if the Habs are willing to give up that package for Ghost, I'd caution to rethink if Ghost is really worth it and if it may juts be more advantageous to spend the cost of offer sheeting high end player. Heck even straight up offering a team 4 1st rounders to what they could land.