There is no way CBJ would do that

Dude don’t want to come off as rude but honestly, let me put it this way. If your trading tkachuk, would you be happy with Atkinson, Riley Nash and 2 seconds. ?

I mean, Columbus had the cap space to go after Dadonov this past offseason for nothing except money. If someone says this is "Too much", they need their head examined.

Thats a no

This would be like trading a crisp 1 dollar bill for a quarter, a dime and 2 rusty nickels.

Even Ottawa wouldn't do that.

Sign a guy in free agency then trade him 2 games into that contract? That would sink any chances they ever have of signing any big name free agent ever again. That's worse than Vegas' dumb 2 year rule.

I like the mindset not wanting to unload the cupboards for one guy. I think this is a solid starting offer if it doesn’t gain any traction to further talks so be it walk away.

That's not rude, it's a fair statement. And you're right, only a crazy homer would suggest it was too much; I should've made that clearer. But, as an Ottawa fan, I'm well aware when a player demands to be traded, and makes it clear they want to end up in a bigger market, you lose a lot of your power in negotiating. The longer you wait for the perfect deal, the worse things get in the room. If CBJ come out of the back-to-backs with Tampa and Floria 0-4... they'll need to rethink the asking price or sacrifice the season. Also, I made it clear why OTTAWA shouldn't pay more. If I were the Rangers or Montreal or LA, a market Dubois would consider signing long term in, different story.

In PLD's case though, that doesn't drive his price down. The Jackets have gotten calls from 20+ teams already. The only markets that would be considered 'smaller stages' than Columbus would be like Arizona, Florida and maybe Carolina, right? And "smaller" might not even be the right word. What he wants is a market that will treat him like a rock star.

Artemi Panarin's trade value went way down when he was about to leave Columbus because he was about to hit free agency and wouldn't sign an extension anywhere. Dubois has two years left on his current contract (under market value, too) and then two RFA years on top of that. Montreal can try to lowball based on being his apparent preferred destination, but Jarmo is in no rush to move him there for pennies on the dollar. There will be a bidding war, and I think the team that wins will be someone like LA or NYR.

It's going to be interesting to watch, but I still believe the longer it drags out the less likely CBJ fans are happy with the outcome. Especially if the loses start piling up.

On the contrary -- if it drags out to the draft, PLD will be eligible to sign an extension but won't be prone to an offer sheet, so they could move him with an extension in place and drive up his value even more, plus Canadian teams would be more willing to jump in because they wouldn't have to worry about a 14-day quarantine.

If anything, his current suitors (non-Canadian ones, at least) should be pushing to get a deal done as soon as possible so it doesn't get to that point. Which would mean bumping up the quality of what they're offering. Which would be in CBJ's best interest short-term too, because it gets rid of a huge locker room distraction.