Quoting: CD282
1 star. You really haven't improved the team much (if at all), Gusev is undersized and unproven, while Lekhonen isn't a top-6 player. Yet you've sent out 2 good prospects (1 VERY good prospect) and 4 picks in addition to 2 players. Lose / lose / lose.
Lehkonen is better than any winger we have currently, that trade is also more about getting rid of Russell, who is not worth anything close to his contract. Gusev is cant miss, I think everyone knows that, everything he has done in his career screams Panarin 2.0, wherever he plays next year he will lead the “rookie” goal scoring race as long as he’s paired with a good distributor (like Nuge).
Samorukov and Bear are expendable, I would argue Samorukov’s value will never be higher than it is right now. Klefbom, Nurse, and Larsson are all in the very earliest years of their primes, Bouchard, Jones, and Broberg are all better prospects than the two I traded away.
I think this team is significantly better, and both wingers I have signed here will still be RFA at the end of their contract, so it also makes the team stronger long term as well as the oilers have maybe two wingers (Benson and Yamo) that you can see playing as much as third line minutes two years from now.
Also, Puljujärvi has made it known that he will never play in Edmonton again and Russell is addition by subtraction, so “sending out two players” is really a pointless statement.