Dumping Johnson would probably cost that first, making it Rust+Jarry for Zucker. Which MIN would most likely decline.

No it really wouldn’t cost a 1st to dump JJ’s salary. Not one single cap dump trade so far has had a 1st round pick involved.

marleau??

He’s a hurricanes God! They are already talking about retiring his jersey in the rafters.
Ok fair enough. However that’s quite a different situation. That’s a guy who had a full NMC, didn’t want to be traded unless it was to get bought out so he can try and finish his career as a shark, and his contract was pretty much unbuyoutable to any team except maybe Carolina. And that’s the only valuable piece that Toronto had to give up. Whereas JJ can be bought out, traded anywhere, and the other team is getting Rust who is like Jason’s Zucker lite, and Jarry, along with a 1st rounder. Minn would be dumb to not accept that trade. Pittsburgh didn’t get much better, if any better at all and that could end up being a lottery pick with how stacked the metro got around them.

Not gonna lie, I'd rather have one year of Marleau at $6,25M than 4 years of Johnson at $3,25M.

Every buyout for over a 35-year old will not save any cap. The buyout will cost as much as the cap hit does.

But it's unlikely that PIT would actually pay first to get rid of Johnson...

Minnesota gets a 2nd bad contract with multiple years on it and ends up spending around $7m a year on players sitting in the press box because Johnson isn't better than Seeler or Hunt. I'm sure Leipold will love paying that kinda cash for a trade that makes his team immediately worse when he wants them to win now. Wild decline.

The money is the same over the life of the respective contracts, so let's look at the on-ice values: Minnesota gets a third-line forward, a third-pairing defenseman (on that team) at best, a cusp backup, and a first-round pick in exchange for a top-2 LW. I don't think that they'd be interested.

Minnesota wouldn’t. They only have 7 million in cap space with 3 players to sign.

Ok firstly they have only Fiala to sign. They have $8M left to do that, $7M if they do the suggested trade. Why should they waste money for Johnson?

JJ is roughly the same as Seeler and Hunt. Neither of them are anything special. They just aren’t on big contracts. I doubt they’d sit JJ. They would play him 3rd pair LHD to see if he could turn it around and possibly increase his trade value. Jarry is slightly better than Stalock based on the fact that Stalock is entering his mid 30s and sucks. Jarry at least has potential and could possibly replace dubnyk down the line.
Rust is Zucker light. Only had 7 less points, which is impressive considering Rust had a bad year last year with his slump, not getting PP time like Zucker gets, and plays up and down the lineup on both sides unlike Zucker who is strictly a top 6 LW.
Minnesota has 7 million roughly in cap with 3 players to sign. This trade gives them roughly 8 million in cap room with only 1 player to sign and a 2nd first. Want to win now? Use that cap room, 1st rounders, and much more complete team to go out and get a better top 6 winger that’s better than Zucker (and preferably right handed since if this trade were to happen Rust would only one of three right handed forwards).
This makes all the sense in the world for Minny. It also gives Minnesota depth on defense that it doesn’t look like they have either.

No they’d have roughly 8-9 million after the trade as they wouldn’t keep Stalock on the roster. And they only have 20 contracts currently on their roster. Signing fiala only makes 12 forwards, 7 D, 2 G. Do this trade, send Stalock down and sign fiala, you only need 1 forward to sign now.

Zucker is a 2nd line LW. Rust is a top 9 that can play up and down the line up. Zucker is strictly a LW. Rust is adequate on both sides and is much better at faceoffs than Zucker. Rust only had 7 less points than Zucker last year. And that’s with playing up and down the line up and getting no PP time unlike Zucker. And also going through like a 30 game goal drought. Also had more defensive zone starts than Zucker. Minnesota only has 2 right handed forwards. Rust would make 3. Zucker might be slightly better than Rust but Rusts versatility makes him an attractive piece. Much more attractive than fans of other teams give him credit for.

Why should they move Stalock down when he's better of the two?

And under great contract. He'll be absolutely certainly taken from waivers.

Edit: As for their forwards, they have no problems at all running lines such as...
Zucker-Staal-Donato
Parise-Koivu-Zuccarello
Greenway-Eriksson Ek-Kunin
Foligno-Rask-Hartman

My guess is you were blindly staring at their contract list and not noting the prospect that are NHL bound

And I didn't even include Fiala.

No he isn’t better of the two. He sucks and he is 32. If he got claimed, it’s no big loss. And that roster kinda blows. A 4 million dollar 4th line center yet y’all complaining about a 3 million dollar bottom pair d? Gtfo ?

I don't think Jarry's better in any way than Stalock. Both are 2G material, but Stalock has the experience.

And yeah pretty sure MIN would withdraw that Rask for Niederreiter trade if possible. But what is done is done, and there's not exactly better roster spot for him with his current performance.

Most likely the same would happen with this trade.

Experience at sucking isn’t exactly better. He only has one season where he played at least as a regular backup and above .910 save percentage. And he’s had quite a few sub .900 seasons. For that I’d just take the younger guy on the cheaper contract. And Rust is better than every single one of those bottom 6 players. While having 8-9 million to get another top 6 forward that is equal or greater than Zucker for a more complete lineup. Especially if they want to win sooner rather than later.

X-Staal-Donato
Fiala-Koivu-Zuccarello
Parise-Eriksson Ek-Rust
Greenway-Rask-Hartman

Looks much better than a forward core that you put.

Stalock and Jarry has a price difference of $100k. That is basically nothing.

Seeing that we have no clue who that X is on your line-up, it kind of sucks. Better keep Zucker when there's no one else on the market in their interest, or trade him for future assets. MIN is going to rebuild, sooner or later.

X could be several different options. If I was minn, I’d go for a RW in that scenario and move donato to LW. Got a few cap strapped teams that could be had for a RW. Vegas with Marchessault. Toronto with Nylander. Off the top of my head.
Edit: as for you saying minn needs to rebuild sooner or later...all the more reason to go with Jarry over Stalock.
The one season that Jarry saw decent nhl time, he had a .908 save percentage and a 2.77 GAA. Which isn’t bad for a young back up. And on par with what Stalock is gonna give you, so why not?

If I were MIN, I wouldn't go after anyone at the moment. I'd trade some of my assets like Zucker and maybe Spurgeon for future assets and start rebuilding with them. A long-term rebuilding plan. The core now is too weak to be succesful.

The team is already weak, so it's likely that they end up last in their division, and get a TOP10, possibly even TOP5 pick in the 2020 Draft.

The assets coming to wild in the PIT trade are all unnecessary. Rust brings yet another 3rd liner, the team already have 7 on 8 of those. Jarry is unnecessary as MIN has their goalie situation sorted out at the moment and no one wants Johnson and that contract, he'd had hard time getting to the lineup even in MIN. The first rounder should be included in any trade that involves Zucker anyway.

Just why should they acquire Jarry, if it means waiving a 2nd goalie who's pretty much just as good as him? Jarry's statistics in a bottom team like MIN would most likely drop from those what you presented - weren't those statistics from a reigning cup winning team?

You lost me at JJ is the same as Seeler or Hunt. JJ has been a healthy scratch in the playoffs for 2 teams now. No team is going to give him a try if they have their blue line set, which the Wild does. If there was a market for JJ, he'd be gone by now.

I'm gonna laugh when a defense hungry team gives up assets to acquire JJ.

I agree that Minnesota should just start a rebuild now. But we know their owner won’t let that happen.

He was scratched by Columbus cause Torts hated him and he was only scratched 1 game by Pittsburgh because they didn’t want to scratch Maatta or put JJ on his off handed side again scratching Gudbranson. But they ended up scratching Maatta anyway after one game in favor of JJ. Brad Hunt has been scratched more in the playoffs than JJ as he played for Vegas for their first playoff run but didn’t see any time and played for Nashville, St. Louis who are playoff teams. Yet has ZERO playoff games played

enough, just get along sheeple.