An American living in Florida on a two time Cup winner waives his NTC for Winnipeg?
Johnson is not worth his 5m X 3 years. He's virtually untradeable.

Yea if there is anyway that McDonough is moving, I want him here in Buffalo. But I'm sure thats a longshot

Wow!! This is one of the most outlandish trades that I've seen here yet. You expect Winnipeg to give up two d-men prospects (one who is going to be outstanding), AND add two meaningful draft picks to take on an aging defender whose skills are diminishing quickly and is earning $6.75M a year for the next 5 years? Whoooo!!! Everyone in Winnipeg would lose their jobs the day that trade happens.

On top of all that, McDonagh controls his destiny, and his destiny's destination is most certainly not Winnipeg.

Does not have to be to Winnipeg, Chicago also has the defensive prospects to make a deal. Also, McDonagh is from St. Paul Minnesota, so Winnipeg would take him close to home and that is something a lot of players want near the later parts of their careers (see Duncan Keith).

And you are right Johnsons value is diminished but he's also been lost in the most stacked roster in the league for a few years now a team like Seattle who will have the cap space for a few years would probably take a flyer on the guy if it only costs a 5th, 6th or 7th pick in the hopes that he can revitalize his career, see Sam Bennett in FLA

I agree with the others here. As nice as McDonagh would be for a year or two, there is no chance Winnipeg gives up a good young defenseman plus picks and gets stuck with McDonagh's full cap hit without some serious compensation added to McDonagh.

The WPG trade doesn’t make sense. Teams aren’t going to give up packages for somebody like McD. Everybody knows Tampa’s situation and essentially they just need to move contracts to keep the core intact now and in the future.

They’re going to sell at low rates. McD might fetch a couple of mid picks from a contending team with space. TJ is going to need to be packaged with a high pick with practically nothing going back.

Why do you leave Palat unprotected?

Like I said to another comment about McDonagh it Does not have to be to Winnipeg, Chicago also has the defensive prospects to make a deal. But, McDonagh is from St. Paul Minnesota, so Winnipeg would take him close to home and that is something a lot of older players want (see Duncan Keith).

Also I would argue that Niku is not really a A or B prospect, I would call him a C prospect at best, Winnipeg completely restructured their Back end this year and he still could not find an every day role on the Team. He was a 7th round pick 6 years ago and will be 25 years old by the time next season starts and I think his ceiling may be a bottom pair d-man. In all I would say Niku's value is minimal at best right now and he wouldn't be an integral part of the trade.

Secondly, I don't know if you can call a guy who's averaged 24min a night over two cup winning runs in the past two years diminishing. He was never the greatest or fastest skater, he was always solid positionally and added tons of value in his own end while chipping in around 0.5ppg with NYR and his first year in TB, and we've seen multiple examples of how slowly elite d-men of this archetype can age (Chara, Weber, Edler (to a lesser degree)). Yes his point production may have fallen off with TB the past few years but he's been asked to play a different role, one that is more defensively oriented but he has still excelled. I think if he goes to a different situation where the expectations of him are different he could revert back to closer to 0.5ppg that he was averaging up until 2 years ago.

Now onto Stanley, who you say is going to be outstanding, yes he could be, but he also could just be an average every day NHL defenseman. He is 23 heading into next season and is coming off a season where he averaged 13min of ice a night and put up 4pts across 37 games and 3pts across 8 playoff games where he averaged 14min a night. He has never really been a huge point producer on the back end during any part of his career so far. He has elite size but that's really all we know about him, will he turn into a Chara? likely not. Could he be another Oleksiak where he plays 18-20min a night and puts up around 20 points a year, I'd say that's the minimum that the Jets are hoping for. Could he be an Erik Cernak type, playing ~20min a night putting up around 30pts a season yeah potentially. Could he be somewhere in between the 3 of these? I'd say that's likely, but I wouldn't say he's for sure going to be an outstanding D-man.

If your problem with the deal is you think its too much for McDonagh then feel free to take out Niku or the 3rd round pick but I honestly do not believe the trade is that far fetched when you look at all the factors including Winnipeg's needs on the back end, and the potential that McDonagh may find being on a competitive team that is only a 7h drive from his family home in St. Paul attractive at this point in his career.

Need to free cap space, chose to protect,
Kucherov, Stamkos, Point, Killorn, Gourde, Cirelli and Joseph (because of his age and low cap number)
McDonagh, Hedman and Sergachev
Vasily

Makes Palat and Johnson the odd men out.

Trade Palat for a pick and get something in return instead of losing him for nothing.

I have two options for TB

7/3/1: (McDonagh)
Kucherov, Nikita 27
Stamkos, Steven 31
Point, Brayden 25
Palat, Ondrej 30
Gourde, Yanni 29
Cirelli, Anthony 23
Joseph, Mathieu 24
Hedman, Victor 30
Sergachev, Mikhail 22
Cernak, Erik 23
Vasilevskiy, Andrei 26

or

4/4/1: (Gourde)
Kucherov, Nikita 27
Stamkos, Steven 31
Point, Brayden 25
Cirelli, Anthony 23
Hedman, Victor 30
Sergachev, Mikhail 22
Cernak, Erik 23
Vasilevskiy, Andrei 26

Trades will be hard to come by before the expansion draft because teams won't want to acquire someone that would prevent them from protecting their own players, at the end of the day every team in the league is going to lose something for nothing you just have to deal with it.

I'm not misunderstanding your reasonings as to why you put this deal together, I'm simply saying it is a fantastically terrible hockey deal for Winnipeg (or any other team you're suggesting should give up this type of a haul for RM). McDonagh has been a great defenceman, but his best days are clearly behind him. Back to back 12 point seasons (19.7 points over an 82 game season), down from his previously normal production of mid 30s to mid 40s over 82 games. He's still a rock solid top 4 guy for he next 2-3 years as well, but he's paid $6.75M per season for 5 more years and that is a significant overpay for the guy you're getting now.

This is all great, BUT it doesn't fit well into a flat salary cap reality. Logan Stanley just turned 23, and is a big 6'6" strong d-man projecting on the upswing in his career and likely carries a cap hit south of $3M for the next 3- 5 years (probably around $1M next year) until you really know what you have in this player. Winnipeg would turn down a McDonagh for Stanley straight up trade, let alone adding two meaningful draft picks (2nd and 3rd), and another prospect (B or C in your opinion, he still has played NHL games).

I believe that McDonagh's contract is almost unmovable at this point, unless Seattle decides they want a mentor for their younger players. Tampa may have to bribe Seattle to take him.