Turcotte is expansion draft exempt. Poehling is not. That alone vetoes any trade with those two players as the core.

If you want Turcotte, there's no way you're getting him unless you send back Caufield. I'm not saying the Kings would do that trade, but that's the only player in the Habs' system that the Kings would be remotely interested in giving up Turcotte for.

I agree with this @math731 Poehling is probably a 2-3 c at the moment... Turcotte is having a down season compared to his projection, and as a student at wisconsin this upsets me greatly. But his value is so much higher than Poehling right now. Turcotte is still in the year after his draft, where as Poehling is a little bit down the road, but hes still in that prospect phase where his value is still projection based not result based. If it were a team like the avalanche where they are already in that competing phase and could use the help right now and next year as opposed to waiting a couple years, I think it would be a little closer, but the Kings literally arent going to do anything until Turcotte or whoever they would trade him for (top prospect wise) hits his stride, so they dont really have a reason to trade for a guy like Poehling. I could see a 3 team trade scenario where the bones of it are Price to COL, Byram/Poehling to LAK, and Turcotte to MTL. I think you should explore that and then tag me in it, Id be really curious to see what you come up with on that front!

Not being a scout, I can't really speak to the merits of both players. Poehling is a solid, albeit unspectacular player who can anchor a 3rd or 4th line, and play 2nd-line minutes if need be. He helps you mainly by keeping the best players on opposing teams from having an easy go of it. My understanding is Turcotte, like his dad, is an exciting offensive package. Look, he was a fifth overall, so he must be pretty good. Adding Brook to the deal might be the kind of sweetener needed to get this deal rolling.

If not Turcotte, what about Vilardi? He finally seems to be over his back issues and regaining his mojo.

The expansion issue is not major as the Kings will be exposing far more useful pieces and have plenty of bloated contracts to leave unprotected. Only Doughty and Kopitar have NMCs, so there's lots of room to shelter Poehling. Don't be surprised if the Kings incentivize Seattle to take Carter's last year, which is $5.2M in cap but only $2M in cash -- the perfect contract for an expansion project.

Why would the Kings give up anything of value to get Seattle to take one year of Carter's contract during a time when they're not expected to be anywhere near the cap anyway? I could see if he had 2 or 3 seasons left, but one season at $5.2 million isn't worth giving up an asset for. They could retain half his salary in his final year and actually get an asset back for him. He leads the Kings in goals right now, it's not like he's been bad this year.

The Kings have 4 defensemen in the system right now that they'll need to protect or they will get selected immediately (Doughty, Walker, Roy, and Clague). That leaves them only forward spots, in which they will probably protect Kopitar, Kempe, Iafallo, and Lizotte. That means they have 0 remaining slots for protection, so unless they can acquire more exempted prospects, anyone they trade for will need to be protected at the expense of one of these guys. If the right deal comes along where the Kings can acquire someone too good to pass up, then maybe they do it, but they're not going to downgrade from Turcotte to Poehling and essentially give away Lizotte to Seattle.

Well, if you're confident they'd want Carter, then you don't have an issue. The reason I suggested incentivizing Seattle with another pick or middling prospect is to ensure they take Carter. That's what a lot of teams do, and that way they don't have to worry about losing someone they value.

I understand that. However, if they don't acquire any additional prospects that require protection, all the players the Kings would have to expose will be middling prospects anyway that they won't mind losing.

Sure, but they delay their rebuild to the point where Kopitar and Doughty are old men. Anyway, it's a dumb argument because neither team gets what it needs out of the deal. Habs don't need another #2 centreman and nor do the Kings.