Patrick is not worth more than Dube, take Dube out and that would be a fair trade. He shouldn’t be of any interest to the Flames anyway on a practical level though, Calgary is probably the worst place for someone with migraine issues to live.
The Blues trade is a weird one for me. I’ll start by saying Tkachuk doesn’t want out, so he’s not getting traded for the hell of it. Next I’ll say I’m a big fan of Kyrou and the pick is nice, that’s a good start to the trade, and although I’ve been pretty insistent on Thomas also having to accompany Kyrou in any Tkachuk to the Blues trade the rest is interesting enough to give some pause for thought. Dunn’s a nice piece, but one I don’t think the Flames really need. Valimaki might be ready to step into the 2LD role to start the year, and if he isn’t he likely takes it over mid-season, so Dunn would likely end up as the #5 again, without the potential to really move up in the lineup. A 5 D system can work though, with Andersson/Tanev shouldering the majority of the right side load and the 3 guys on the left splitting time pretty equally (little more for Hanifin as the all situations guy to lean on, Dunn at #2 cuz he’d run PP1, and Valimaki a little less while he develops, maybe a 23/19/18 kinda split). So Dunn could work, but I think he’d have to come to terms with the fact that Valimaki will likely surpass him within a year or so and bump him out of the top 4. There are advantages to having your PP1 QB being on the 3rd pair though, it lets you rest up your top 4 guys who are most important at even strength (particularly in the playoffs when most teams play their top 4 almost exclusively at even strength) while still icing a good PP. So basically Dunn’s a guy that can fit, but is kind of strengthening a position that was already fairly strong. Then we get to Tarasenko, who is what really makes the trade weird. He’s a little older, and very injury prone, which is cause for concern, but apparently he’s healthy now so who knows. If we get the physical, goal scoring Tarasenko from like 5 years ago then I’d do this trade in a heartbeat, but this is where the risk comes in in trading our most important player for a package like this. Overall I’d probably do it, because it likely improves the team slightly in the short term, and Kyrou’s young enough to be a key player moving forward if Tarasenko turns out to be a bust, with the pick also acting as insurance, that could turn into a solid player (likely target Ceulemans, Cossa, or Svechkov). It might be a little risky to trade Tkachuk for a package where we’re not sure if the best player is gonna be an impact guy anymore, but the value is there and we need to try something I guess. It might be seen as an overpay by the Blues, but I think Tarasenko’s value is pretty low right now as we don’t know if he’ll return to form (he also only has 2 points in his last 8 playoff games). It’s the kind of package Calgary would need to tempt them to move Tkachuk for less than a top 10 centre though.
Knights probably don’t want to add much to a Monahan for Tuch trade, but I’d be willing to do it straight up if it comes down to it, anything else we can get for the positional advantage is great. I’d take this in a heartbeat for the Flames.
Overall I think this would definitely be an interesting shake up, and if the Flames did it I’d probably be fairly satisfied, although I’d hope they’d try to spend to the cap. The only trade I dislike is the Patrick one (chinooks just mess with migraines, don’t think that’s a great practical fit), but I could see trading something like Dube+2nd+3rd for Reinhart to be the 2C, and we have the cap room for that. Granlund’s probably overpaid a bit, but he’s not a horrible fit. I might shake up the lines a bit, I think Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tarasenko would be good to give tank a great playmaker and the best chance to succeed, Mangiapane-Reinhart-Tuch as a secondary offense line and elite 2-way line, Granlund-Backlund-Kyrou is a solid mesh of players, couple vets for Kyrou, Backlund still plays great defense, could provide some secondary scoring we were really lacking this year. Alternatively if we signed a guy like Saad instead of Granlund, we could go Saad-Reinhart-Kyrou as a scoring line with Reinhart covering most of the 2-way stuff and Mangiapane-Backlund-Tuch as a fast, excellent shutdown line capable of scoring some key goals at even strength. Pretty interesting take overall! I’d be fine with an off season where they at least try something like this. Replenish the pipeline a bit, shake up the top 6, and add some key depth scoring options. Shame it would cost Tkachuk but overall the team is likely better.
As a side note I’d leave Backlund as an A before giving one to Johnny or Mang, and consider Tanev/Lucic for an A as well (also not sold Lindholm is captain material yet, but maybe he is). Tkachuk and Dube are the two main guys you could see as future captains of this team and both accompany Gio off the team in this world so leadership might be bit wonky for a while.