Quoting: Seider53
Teams will need cap eaten elsewhere, it won't be hard to hit the floor. Key example, if you add Russell to this roster, you're $3million over the cap. You'd probably need to replace the prospects with a pair of draft picks to get that deal through.
You're delusional if you think Helm for Russell straight up isn't an even deal, and crazier to think that a sub-$2M retention on a team expected to be upwards of $13M away from the ceiling is charging a premium for said retention.
Quoting: aedoran
Cairns at this point has very little trade value since he has committed to playing a 4th season at Cornell and at the end of the season he can sign where ever he wants. Safin is playing in the ECHL you are going to have to wait until he is the AHL before expecting a return for him.
That commitment can be broken if he thinks he has an opportunity in Detroit's system. You're basing his commitment out of him not having a role in Edmonton's system, similar to how Marino did last season.
I posed the question to Seider53, and now I'll pose it to you: does playing in the ECHL in order to play more minutes matter less than playing substantially fewer games in the AHL? Was the expectation that Safin rehab his injury in an AHL-equivalent league or bide his time in the ECHL or Czech2 leagues?
Quoting: McRanteskog
Look at all the teams expected to make it thru to the next round of these playoffs.
Now of those 16 teams, how many would you say have a 2nd line wing worse than Pulju?
How many would say that Helm at #3C is an upgrade on what they have?
As for Koskinen, you are giving me regular season stats, playoff performance is a whole other conversation.
Koskinen did have better regular season numbers this year compared to last, but he also played 17 fewer games. Any chance another 17 games played and his number begin to gravitate closer to those of the 2018-2019 season? probably
If Puljujarvi was on an NHL-equivalent 36-point pace
as the best player on Karpat last season, it's reasonable to assume that having Hall and McDavid as linemates will result in some sort of boost to his stats. Let's be super conservative and give him a 25% boost, even less than a 1.5 multiplier. This makes Puljujarvi a 45+ point winger in the NHL next season, assuming a full 82-game season. Thus, at an expected 0.549ppg average, Puljujarvi matches or eclipses:
Anthony Beauvillier
Vincent Trochek
Christain Dvorak
Paul Stastny
Phil Kessel
Charlie Coyle
Tyler Ennis
Mats Zuccarello
Ryan Johansen
Nazem Kadri
Jake Virtanen
Martin Necas
Carl Soderberg
Nick Bonino
Jake Debrusk
Jared McCann
Like this list goes on for miles, and it's assuming that Hall and McDavid have almost no impact on Puljujarvi's production.It'd be silly not to project Puljujarvi between 50 and 60 points as their winger. He's had double hip surgery, has naturally matured some, and rediscovered the joy of the game back home. He's not going to be the same player we saw during his stint as an 18-20 year old.
You still don't get the point regarding Helm: Tippet ran - exclusively - a shutdown, garbage minutes third line this season. What teams would typically run as their 4th line, given that Edmonton had limited options. By applying a similar philosophy, Helm fits this role more that perfectly fine. The fourth line can see sheltered minutes and the third line takes on bad matchups.
If Koskinen has a capable partner instead of having to drag around the corpse of Mike Smith, he likely doesn't have to play upwards of 17 more games. It's likely he caps near 50 and Georgiev plays the rest. That's the advantage of tandem goaltenders. What about that is hard to understand?