buffalo declines

Flames decline because they already have bad center depth and trading your best one away for something other than a center is a bad move

It’s more likely that Buffalo offers the eighth overall pick for Monahan than offering up Reinhart.

The Flames most certainly decline

...and what else?

A top 10 pick and salary relief is not enough? I’m pretty sure that’s the exact position he was drafted. I was thinking the eighth overall for just Monaghan wasn’t enough. Good luck getting a better offer from someone else.

That Bennet contract is a big yikes

He was drafted 6th overall, and is a proven top 6 / top line C still in his prime and signed for three more seasons. You need to go back through the NHL draft history and see how many players picked top 5 to top 10 end up as good as Monahan is. No one magic bean is not enough for Monahan. Fans on here over rate draft picks too much.

Monahan is a guaranteed 1st/2nd line C and the 8th overall has a small chance to replace him over the next handful of years. More needs to be added, otherwise why would the Flames trade their #1C?

No, the Andrew Ladd contract is a big yikes. Bennett is overpaid by about $1 million AAV and it's only for one more season, and it's still a lower than league average AAV.

A guy who’s never eclipsed 40 points will not make 5 mil AAV. It’s that simple. He should be making 3 million max. His career high is 36 points and that was 5 years ago

What are you talking about? Bennett's AAV is $2.55 million not $5 million AAV.

Did you get the two Sam's mixed up?

Realistically a top 10 draft pick should be enough to trade for almost anyone. There are maybe 2 to 3 players on each team that one top 10 draft pick is not enough straight up. Sure, whoever gets drafted in that spot is at least a year away from the NHL. But he is expected to be a top line forward, top pairing defenseman, or #1 goalie in the future. Busts happen, but in a draft This deep you’re getting a very good player there.

Oh, yeah, that’s embarrassing lmao

That's what people say every year, because they over rate the prospects chances. Then we watch teams draft guys like Bennett, Dal Colle, Vrtanen, Fleury, Ritchie, A Nylander, Ristolainen, Nichushkin, Morin and on and on and on......

Like I said, the chances of getting a player as good as Monahan at 8th overall in this draft are sketchy at best. Needs to be more added when you're trading a sure thing vs. a maybe.

Haha, no worries.

No they dont, though itd be nice to get a Right handed winger back too

Take this deal, sign toffoli and leivo... enjoy winning.

Sign toffoli and leivo.

I like the idea of the Flames using some cap space (assuming they free some up with 1-2 moves this offseason) to sign a guy like Holtby on a 1-year deal.

Leivo is my dark horse free agent big win this year. He is this year’s Brandon Tanev Without the fanfare of a playoff run. If the Sabres can get him he vastly improves the third line.

Maybe Leivo, Toffoli will be too much money for Buffalo after they get everyone else signed

How about Ryan Donato for Sam Bennett? Both players would probably benefit from new scenery and a clean slate.

Best it likely gets is Mittelstadt and the #8 overall, and that might turn some Sabres' fans off from the deal.

Monahan is a poor-man's top-line center, and I think the last few years have been evident of that. He lost the role to Lindholm a few times over the past 2 seasons iirc. I don't think you'll get that much more of a return than what Stastny fetched the Blues when they traded him to Winnipeg: sure, Monahan is younger and has a bit of term, but Stastny represents inflated value at the deadline. The two are about equivalent players, so I'd reckon it's worth using that trade as a comparable.

No, the best comparable is Matt Duchene.

Matt Duchene had averaged 0.73 points per game and 0.30 goals per game in 8 seasons with Colorado and was traded at 27 years old with one and a half seasons left on his deal for:

Shane Bowers (taken in the 1st round just months earlier)
2019 1st round pick (ended up being Bowen Byram)
2019 3rd round pick
Kyle Turris ( a 27 year old C who was coming off a 27g 55p season)

Then the Avs flipped Turris for:

Samuel Girard ( a 20 year old former 2nd rounder)
Vladislav Kamenev (a 21 year old former 2nd rounder)
2018 2nd round pick

That equates to basically two 1st rounders, three 2nd rounders and a 3rd rounder for 1.5 years guaranteed of 27 year old Matt Duchene and his 0.73 ppg and 0.30 goals per game.

Monahan if traded would be a 25 year old C with three years left on his deal and has averaged 0.76 ppg and 0.36 goals per game


Duchene was then traded a year and a half later as a rental for two more prospects and another 1st round pick plus a conditional 1st round pick.

Three really crucial points I want to make regarding that monster three-way deal:

1. The really, really big caveat with the Duchene trade is that either the 2018 or 2019 first round pick was intended to be a late first. The Senators had every intention of contending and the floor fell out from underneath them. That deal never gets made in hindsight if Ottawa knows that there's a reasonable chance that the first rounder included in this deal would be top-5 in either year the pick was eligible to be traded
2. Turris was an expiring UFA at the end of the season and a deal would not be reached with the Senators: this is where the value Colorado acquires in this trade comes from. As an expiring UFA, there's no way in Sam Hill a rental was seeing that kind of return unless the Predators were damn sure that neither Girard or Kamenev would amount to much. One or the other, not both for a rental.
3. Bowers and the pick that became Stienburg aren't really breaking this trade, and I think one could argue some sort of equivalence to Byram+UFA for Mittelstadt+#8 in 2020. If we can agree that Ottwa overpaid on assets out for what they ended up receiving, pieces like this can be exempt from a Calgary trade without too much worry. Bowers had a slow start to his +1 USHL season an that typically indicates that the player isn't going to have a high chance of flourishing at higher levels. Prospect development is a very iffy thing, and something clicked during his freshman year. It hasn't exactly translated to the AHL yet, but the Avalanche have nothing but time with this player. I don't think Ottawa really lost out there.

Looking at this trade as a template for anything is incredibly biased. The world knew that the Senators got hosed and the Avalanche made out like bandits. Teams aren't going to line up to make that mistake again.

A more apt prospect comparison for Bowers would likely be Tage Thompson than Mittelstadt. There's your upgrade if you do some shoddy math and swap out the third rounder for the better reclamation project. Perhaps the Flames should be looking to add a Johansson or other plug-and-play from Buffalo's roster if you want it to be a dead-ringer for the Sens-Avalanche half of that trade.