Merrill will be protected from Jersey at this point
Some how found his game playing with a defensI've d man in santini
He looks like the guy we hoped he would be
Unless we make a move Lovejoy will be exposed

I'm sure you feel he's good but how do you protect him, Severson, Moore and Greene? Are you saying NJD is protecting just 4 forwards? That's news to me, but it may be the right thing to do for them. I'll await your clarification on which 3 or 4 they protect.

My two cents
Can't see the Wild making a deal to protect Scandella. Going forward I think they value Olafsson over Scandella and with their cap situation next year they have to move at least one contract worth more than 4mil. I could see a deal along the lines of Vegas selects Haula and gets Scandella with 500k-1mil retained for "future considerations" (for free).
Two 3rd round picks wouldn't be enough to get me to take Benoit Pouliot. You're freeing up 4mil in cap space for a team within your own division that is looking at a minimum of 16mil going to Connor and Leon in the next two years. Extract better draft picks or take a chance on Reinhart or Brossoit.
I would take Nemestnikov over Paquette and the picks.
If Vegas is able to select Ellis, they should keep him. I wouldn't do the LA trade either.
Overall, I like the effort.

I appreciate the well written comments and constructive criticism guy. I feel like Vegas really wants picks over players because of moral. I'm not sure if you play EA NHL at all but Moral is a big part of things and it literally sucks to go from a good team to Vegas. Its bigger then your thinking. It'll make the majority of good players angry and corrupt the atmosphere. If you get picks they don't know whats on the other side of the fence so they don't see the grass is greener. All they know is that they play in the NHL and they are happy. Nobody wants to be the best player of the worst team, if that happens they usually want out after a year or two. Picks are key and i like Paquette and picks over Namestnikov, dudes all potential right now. He's got 24 points in over 60 games, that's not producing. Get the picks all day imo it gave them the flexibility to move up and get Rasanen. He could end up being better than both Namestnikov and Paquette. I probably shoulda added more for Ellis and the other pieces because he's blossoming. He could end up a Mike Green type player and he's young. I ship him for a 1st either way though maybe get back another piece, I just thought TB would be a good destination for him to really settle in and dominate. The Pouliot thing I could go either way man. It's like my team getting rid of Beleskey. I think the value is about a 2nd round pick to dump them because they've been productive in the past and may actually thrive in a new situation. Pouliot is a great guy to have when your team has no talent because he steps his game uo. In Boston he brought it hard some nights but floated through others. If I'm Vegas I take the gamble and try to get good thoughts into his head and really see if he can recapture his productiveness.

Yeah The Wild might leave Scandella open, but if they can only protect 3 I keep thinking to myself (and i haven't heard from wild fans on this) But I protect Suter Spergeon and Dumba. I let Vegas take Brodin or Scandella and plug the one I have left in at 2nd pair LHD. I made up another deal which I thought could work where Vegas Gets Picks and doesn't have to flip Brodin. I coulda played this more safe and I could make one better than I did, but atleast I went for it and Plugged in real assets so people can picture whats going on in the future. I don't think Minnesota can afford to protect 4 defensemen and that leaves Brodin. Looking back at it I shoulda just went for Brodin and either Flipped him or Set him up on the top pair for 25 minutes a night.

Based on what I've seen across Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and local newspapers, the general consensus among Wild fans/followers is to protect Brodin over Dumba. There are a few that disagree but the vast majority (including the beat writer) seems to be pretty much in agreement that it would be smarter to leave Dumba exposed. There is a very real possibility that we try to swing a deal to get Vegas to select Scandella simply for the cap relief especially if the NHLPA doesn't want a to use their escalator to bump up the cap next season. If they do use it and the cap goes up to $75-76 million, we should be able to re-sign Nino and Granlund without a problem whether Vegas takes Scandella or Dumba.

For 2 years in a row now, Brodin has suffered a broken bone during the middle of the season and we have seen a significant drop in the PK% and overall team defense. Boudreau has also made public comments about how vital Brodin is to the team overall and how much they missed him on the ice when he was out. I just don't see him being left exposed in expansion.

Dumba may be used as a trade piece within the next 16 months or so. He has the highest perceived value around the league and moving him would clearly give the best return out of any defenseman on the roster. It would also give some cap relief for the future when we have guys like Eriksson Ek, Greenway, Kunin, and Kaprizov coming off their ELCs. If he's already at $2.55 million, I don't want to see how over payed he will be on his next deal.

Sure Detroit's going to give up a 2017 5th rounder just so McPhee can take Riley Sheahan we're not that stupid not giving up picks for Vegas to claim a player unless that said player makes a bundle of money.

So you think Sheahan will turn it around? 2M is a bundle of money man for someone who hasn't scored a goal this entire season and has played over 60 games lol. That's like 3 times what he's been worth this year. He's a $700,000 type player for you this year and if he's on the way down I'd rather give a 5th (which isn't usually that valuable) to dump the 2M so I could put it on top of whatever I could offer Alzner or Oshie per year and get a real player. I don't know your cap, but if you only had 6M space maybe you need 7M to get Alzner or Oshie, that was my only thought. If you wanna keep your 5th you can.

Thank you for bumping this and doing me a solid with your info. My new one is up and they select Glendening because you didn't offer a pick. So its either you lose Glendening or Sheahan and a 5th. Tell me what you want because I will make another one surely sometime soon.