Fleury, after the season he's having, is not a 1st-round-pick caliber dump.

A first to lose fleury? He’s worth a first at this rate.

A first for zadorov? Zadorov is good but you will be lucky to get much more than a 2nd for him lol

Yes, Fleury is having a great season. The issue the Golden Knights are going to have is the salary cap and a need for roster flexibility. They've been playing with a shortened roster for a lot of this season. They're not going to be able to do that in a full regular season with a Winter Olympics break for 2 weeks of hard played hockey smashed in the middle. They'll need roster flexibility next year with cheaper players and it'll come at a premium because the only significant contracts they have coming off the books are Alex Martinez at $4m and Tomas Nosek at $1.25m and they'll want to resign Martinez probably. Cody Glass probably takes one of the forward spots along with a couple other ELC forwards.

See Fleury answer above. I think the Blackhawks were asking for a 1st round pick for Zadorov and didn't trade him because they didn't get it. Negotiations have started with Zadorov wanting $4m a season and he's not going to get that from the Hawks and they're not going to let him go to arbitration in case he gets awarded something at $4m or greater. Zadorov will be traded and I think they aim for a 1st or a 2nd and a prospect.

I 100% get your points, but all the players they could realistically trade for cap space have value, even if it could be decreased due to the cap situation. They could sell Fleury for less than what he's worth, but they still won't give up anything to get rid of him.

The first 5 out of 5 'wow' ACGM I've seen in a while.

No chance Vegas trades a 1st with Fleury.
No chance Van trades a 2nd and 3rd to dump Ericsson. Especially if the Beagle rumors are true.
No team is trading a 1st for Zadorov.
Seattle, imo, takes young players and stays as close to the expansion draft floor, ~49 mil, and fills the top with ufas. Borgstrom or Stillman would be the choice. Brett Connolly types will be there from every team.
Take a chance and trading a 2nd rd pick are two different things. Toronto has Hutchinson and backup goalies will be plentiful.

Wow...

If an NHL GM isn't asking for a draft pick along with a salary cap move for a veteran like Fleury in his late 30s, even though he's been performing great (and realistically could fall off a cliff next year at 37), they're not doing their job right because GMs are going to be stuck against for a flat cap for at least 2-3 more seasons and it might be 4 or 5 years. GMs with cap space hold the leverage, not the other way around. I know this has been true to a degree before but the flat cap era is going to be much different and cap space will be golden, knight.

I'm definitely shooting for the moon with the trade hopes. Subban is a former 1st round pick and decent back up option that'll land a quality pick or prospect. It might not be with Toronto and Fleury is a high hope that requires Subban be moved off the roster. Toronto's pick will likely be very late in the 2nd round so I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibility for a low 2nd round/high 3rd round scenario.

In the expansion draft, I'm fairly confident the Hawks will protect Toews, Kane, DeBrincat, Strome, Hagel, Nylander, and Borgstrom at forward and Keith, Murphy, and Zadorov at defenseman. Borgstrom was the main piece of Connolly/Stillman trade for the Hawks so they're fine with losing one of the other 2. If the Hawks don't make any moves, Seattle will have a choice of Kampf, Carpenter, Gaudette at forward, de Haan or Stillman at defenseman, and Delia or Subban at goaltender. So, yes, Stillman could be the pick but I suspect otherwise. I think their roster will have more of a veteran look because Seattle is going to be expected to win in their first season and go to the playoffs like Vegas did or they're a failure.

Flower is still good why are they giving up a 1st to get rid of him?

Loui takes a 1st.

Thats a tough buy for a D.

Subban is not worth a 3rd. Especially for Toronto who doesn't need him.

3rd for Malcom Subban

Vegas has played games with 5 defensemen or 10 forwards for games this season because so they're so cap strapped. They've made it work, not great, for a shorterned season. As I said in an earlier reply, they need to dump salary to have a more flexible roster next season. They can't play a full NHL regular season that includes a 2 week break for the Winter Olympics where some of their players will play 2 hard weeks of hockey and expect to continue to win games. They're going to wear their players out. They wouldn't dump Fleury because they want to but because they're committed to Lehner long term and a cheap backup goalie for Lehner makes sense with the flat cap for the next 2-5 seasons. If I'm a GM, I'm not taking on Fleury's salary - even with him playing like he is - without Vegas giving me a 1st round pick too. That's going to be the new reality for a flat cap that could last 5 seasons (per Elliotte Friedman) - cap space is going to be traded with high draft picks and top prospects like never before. A good GM with cap space has all the leverage and should hold it like a kidnapper waiting for a ransom payment.

The Leafs have Campbell and Hutchinson signed for next season. If Hutchinson is such a good goalie, why isn't he their back up right now? They're going to roll all of next season with Campbell and Hutchinson?

If the Leafs do what they supposed to in the post season this year, their 2nd round pick will be near the end of the 2nd round and almost a 3rd round pick anyway. Plus, they don't have a 3rd round pick to trade for the next couple seasons.

After this year Flower has 1 year left at 7 mill. It'd be cheaper to buy him out or with what more teams are doing is doing a 3 team trade to retain up to 75%. You wouldn't have to eat that much though. Doing a trade to say a team LIKE pens. Vegas eats 1 or 2 mill then a team like Buffalo eats another 1 or 2 mill. Flower is fine at 4-5 mill aav. No need to trade a 1st away to dump him.

Leafs have Campbell and Hutch signed but that's not the only goalies they have. They still have a good starter in Freddy that they can sign or Rittich that I'd rather have as Leafs back up. They don't need to pay a 2nd for an unproven goalie that's on his what 3rd or 4th team in a couple years. Plus Leafs already have 2 young goalies that are close in Woll and Scott. Plus they have VV.

The "Fleury traded to the Blackhawks" part I got right.