Carolina straight up reject, the ask for Ferland was a 1st plus a prospect, although we all know that's stretching his value at a minimum. As for Brett Pesce, not without more then that. Kapanen is a nice piece but 2 2nds and Borgman aren't enough to make up the difference in value between Kapanen and Ferland + Pesce, and Trevor Moore would be surplus to requirement in Carolina too, with guys like Julian Gauthier, Aleksi Saarela, Janne Kuokkanen, Saku Maenalanen likely to make the team out of camp next season, and with guys like Necas to come up and Staal to come back, the roster doesn't have enough space for Moore

You would think the fact that no Canes fan has them trading Peace would indicate something.

Go after Faulk or Hamilton instead.

Canes fans think all of their defenceman are all stars and are worth the other teams top young players. They are also looking like they will miss the playoffs for the 10th straight year. Not saying this trade is perfect but Pesce is a 2nd pair defenceman who in certain situations can play top pair minutes (if he has a true #1 to play with). Faulk is another 2nd pair guy. Hamilton should be a top pair guy but he's currently being used as the #3 right handed defenceman. So if we look it from the standpoint of which team has greater need, who do you think would pay more for an upgrade. The current 2nd place team in the Eastern Conference who is top 10 league wide defensively, or the team that is 9th in the East, has missed the playoffs for 9 straight years and has a clear need for scoring which is what is preventing them from being in a playoff position. Carolina is not in a position of strength in negotiating a deal with the Leafs.

Carolina should trade one of their defenceman, possibly 2 of their defenceman if they can get some better scoring help. What they can't afford to do is demand way too much for their players, miss out and then miss the playoffs. TO on the otherhand? They can roll the dice with what they have.

My perception of their RHD situation is as follows (feel free to correct me Canes fans):

Hamilton and Faulk are both offensively potent defensemen who are somewhat liabilities defensively. Faulk is a bit of a PP specialist. With players like that you want to give them favorable matchups where the ice will be tilted in their favor and they will be in the O-zone more often than not (O-zone slanted draws, not being matched against the opposing top line, etc.).

They have Adam Fox putting up 1.4 PPG in college right now, and the perception I have is that he'll be jumping straight to the NHL (next year?). He is another defensemen of that mold.

You can't give all three D-pairings offensively favored matchups. It doesn't work. They can't make optimal use of their players if they trade Peace and roll with Faulk-Hamilton-Fox down the right side. They would be playing to their players weaknesses instead of strengths.

The perception I have of Carolina's plan is that Faulk will walk when his contract is done and will be replaced by Hamilton/Fox (in role and deployment). So he would be the cheapest to trade for (also the least valuable though in my opinion).

Hamilton would be trade able, and if they trade him they may look to re-sign Faulk (probably would?). They would probably be looking for a lesser but capable LHD and help up front (or maybe only one of them depending on the players involved).

I'm not sure where I would peg Peace's theoretical value, but he is their RHD that makes the least sense to trade. Because he is more defensively minded, and they have less players (and less capable players) to fill that niche (Pesce + TVR, maybe McKeown). Whereas they have 2+1 players to fill the offensive D-man niche (we call them puck moving D-men now though).

I don't think any of that is off base at all. I agree that I'd not want to trade him over Faulk or Hamilton either. However this is the problem that Carolina is in. They have on paper an extremely deep defence, but despite that, they aren't good enough to make the playoffs. So trading a defenceman for a forward who can score is a move they really need to look at making. From the reports I have read, they want a huge return for one of their defenceman, the problem is the two guys they want to move aren't getting near enough interest at those prices. Which is why Pesce is getting all the attention, he's younger, cheaper and better defensively than Faulk or Hamilton.

So Carolina looks like they will have to sell really low on Hamilton (mainly because he's on the market after just being acquired which puts a lot of smoke around the player's fit in the dressing room) and even lower on Faulk. GM's know Carolina really wants to make the playoffs, they are going to play hardball. So management is going to have to decide, do they send out Pesce and get a top 6 forward who can score? Or do they move Faulk or Hamilton in trades that probably don't look great on paper. If they were to trade Hamilton now, its going to look like they miscalculated on him in the summer and want to back out of that mistake, which will lower his value immensely, and Faulk just isn't that desirable to warrant a huge price tag. He's a 2nd and a B prospect type of return.

Carolina is in a bind and they'll have to be bold or patient. I'd probably say be patient because they do have some pieces they could potentially play with in the summer. We'll see.