Joined: May 2017
Posts: 517
Likes: 214
Sixteen teams make the playoffs every year. Some teams may be more likely to win than others, but for every individual team, the odds are that they lose. In this scenario, if we win, great. But otherwise, since Hall and Barrie are rentals, we waste Cernak, Joseph, Verhaeghe, Foote, Killorn, Rutta, Coburn, two 1sts, and two 4ths. We do get Couturier in return, who is one of the most valuable assets there are, and some of those are expendable, but overall that’s a pretty ridiculous risk. Not to mention a lot of these are underpayments from us, especially the return Philadelphia gets for Couturier, the only asset we would get to keep.
Right now, our deficiencies are mainly defensive structure and grit at forward. None of these assets really address that (Barrie is offensive, and maybe these forwards know how to be physical but they’re certainly not known as power forwards). Moving Cernak actually significantly hurts in that regard. I would prefer to address those issues specifically (Kreider + a coaching shakeup may work wonders) and not pay steep costs for big names who merely improve our strengths.