Quoting: Sebybbq
Yeah that was my point! Montreal
Isn’t trading for stepan but if they trading with arizona to take stepan contract that could work but arizona would have to gave us fischer. Stepan isnt a upgrade on actual centerline in Montreal. He could help but i rather play the young kids giving them ice time
agreed he'd be our worst Top 6 option straight out the gate but there is a lot to be said about what he could provide on 4th line as he'd be one of basically 3 Centers in the NHL who play 4th line primarily and can take over 1000+ faceoffs . sure we already have Thompson who can take almost 1000 so there is no incentive for us to trade currently without a Fischer in return . (Stepan's an upgrade as a player on Thompson but not as a Faceoff Center , we'd actually be downgrading in Win % to get 300-400 more draws a year off 2nd and 3rd helping KK and RP grow more naturally )
We should also look at Connor Brown in OTT as being a top 6 potential player pigeon hold under new management into a bottom 6 role as the change in the system effected them both negatively as it did Domi leading to his trade . Brown isnt going to be used any different in OTT after being acquired in the Yard Sale they call the Ceci-Zaitsev trade . if we had Brown and Fischer we'd have enough support on offense long term to grow with them that letting the kids play would be our new motto injecting 1-2 forward prospects each year like we will with Poehling/Suzuki this year .
long term this means we can have Brown,Fischer, Drouin , Domi and Gallagher long term for 25-30m allowing the Poehlings, Kotkanemi's,Suzuki's , Caufields, Ylonen's , Ikonen's, Olofsson's and Evans to grow in around them in our offensive core giving us only 1 player over 30 on our offensive crew by 2022-23 in Brendan Gallagher . (Stepans deal would just be ending ). We could move out Danault for a Profit after getting paid to take him and Romanov for Weise the return would add to the best trade MB has made as GM . Tatar could land us more in the Pacioretty return giving us Suzuki,Norlinder ,Legurerrier plus whatever Tatar lands giving MB another high return in a trade. While Petry , Armia ,Lehkonen , Kulak and Lindgren can be moved for whatever holes MTL feels we lack in AHL/Depth prospects and picks .