big Darren Helm fan?

Flames fan here, I would do this.

I am not allowed to evaluate Adam Henrique trades. He is one of my favorite players ever. Legendary performance in 2012 to get us to the cup final. Was the nicest human ever to my brother who is on the spectrum. Great guy.

i have seen darren helm on sabres rosters TOO MUCH today

As a Detroit fan I'd make this trade and I'd also be willing to retain some of Helm's salary.

We need Adam Henrique more than we need Rasmus Ristolainen. Much more.

I would think this frees up room to bring along some of your young centers. You could go into next year with Getzlaf, Steel, Zegras and Comtois as your 4 down the middle and then you don't have Henrique taking away from those minutes for the next 4 years from one of your prospects that are ready to make the jump.

That would be fine if Comtois played center, but in my opinion he won't ever see noticeable let alone significant time there except when the center of his line gets tossed out of the circle. And even if he could, hat doesn't address the issue of what happens when Getzlaf retires at the end of the 2020-2021 season (or 2022 at the latest). We need Henrique as a bridge to the young guys.

You can always bring Getzlaff back for 1 more year. I would hope Steel and Zegras are ready for top 6 roles by that point. Then you have 1 of your other prospects hopefully ready for 3C. Either way I would not want to have Henrique making 5.8 on my third line. Sabres likely move him after 2 years or buy him out. He is just a bridge until Cozens is ready for 2C. Henrique is not our top target but it may be too costly to acquire the players we desire more.

My parenthetical ("or 2022 at the latest") referred to bringing Getzlaf back for one year. I think that will happen because as your experience with Casey Mittelstadt and Montreal's experience with Kasperi Kotkaniemi (among many others) shows, one or even two years' exposure doesn't bring a rookie up to first- or second-line status, so we need Henrique unless we get a solution to our RD problem in return, and Ristolainen isn't it. We'd be interested in trading Henrique for Henri Jokiharju, but the reason why you won't do that is exactly the same as our reason why we don't want Ristolainen.

We probably wouldn't trade Jokiharju for anyone on your roster. Most players that are top 6 are ready within 2 - 3years of their draft. I doubt Kotkaniemi or Middlestadt end up being difference makers in the NHL. Look at most of the players that have become that in the league over the last 10 years and the majority have done it within 1 - 2 years.