DAL declines easily. Russell's overpaid and not needed. Also why would you even acquire Johns since he can't play?

Somebody DAL might be more willing to give up. DAL had interest in Methot before. He is unlikely to stick around, Russell fills that veteran role and could perform decently on a team such as DAL. Perhaps a 500000 retention would sway the decision?

As of now, even if Methot were healthy he most likely wouldn't fit to the roster. They simply don't need any d-men. Lindell-Klingberg, Heiskanen-Polak and Lovejoy-Fedun have been great pairs, and they have Oleksiak as a 7th D. Teams have problems scoring against Dallas, so there's nothing really that has to be changed at the defense.

This year, yeah, but Polak, Lovejoy and Fedun all are UFAs this offseason. It's unlikely DAL goes 3/3 on resigning them.

How is the trade in terms of value? It and the others?

Why not though? They've done great job, and wont cost them much. Besides, if Johns gets healthy, he can take one of those players' place. Also there's d-men like Honka and Bayreuther waiting for a chance to make it to the roster. Back in November Dallas had some trouble with 5 of their roster d-men being sidelined, and still they performed pretty well.

Is that the only move from this outlook that doesn't make sense in your eyes?

I see your point, but if we were to assume Lovejoy and Polak went different directions, I could see Russell being a good pairing with either Honka or Heiskanen

Well as a DAL fan I watched the games when Russell played there, and I wasn't impressed. Only thing he can do really is blocking shots. Don't really want him back, especially when he's that overpaid. Polak gets $2,7M less and does the job better.

As for the other trades, I didn't really pay attention to those. But after looking them I'd say only the BUF deal makes somewhat sense. NJ doesn't need Sekera, they already have 4-5 LDs (Greene, Butcher, Vatanen, Mueller, Smith), TOR can't really afford to get players, they're pretty much in a cap hell. LA trade's decent, but taking Puljujärvi is a risk. Could see them getting 2nd+3rd for Toffoli...and that package has more value than Gagner+Poolparty if he's really becoming such a bust as it seems for now.

That Devils trade is god damn horrible. They would never do that in a million years.