Initial Creation Date: Feb. 7, 2022

Published: Feb. 7, 2022

Team: 2021-22 Los Angeles Kings

Kind of crazy ideas here, with the assumption that GMs have Vegas over a barrel after how they were treated in the expansion draft in addition to having all the leverage of a team that wants to bring Eichel in to their roster.

According to a CF tweet, Vegas needs to clear $4.3mil to bring Eichel into the lineup currently, since they are sitting on $5.7mil LTIR. Let me know if you think the value is off. Here's my idea:

Reilly Smith and Nicholas Roy for Athanasiou (half retained) and a pick of some sort (I put a 2nd rounder here; the 1st rounder is absolutely off the table)? That clears $4.4mil exactly for them. They don't feel too shafted because Athanasiou can fit with their high speed game on a 3rd line with some decent scoring potential, and they start recouping some of their draft capital they've spent.

For LA, that adds scoring and size to the lineup with Reilly being 6'2" and Roy being 6'4". This helps with the current playoff push. Heck, you could just run Smith-Roy-Brown as a 3rd line and let Byfield marinate in the A to push his ELC one more year.... Smith contract ends at the end of the year and should be let go as someone who is likely out of the desired age group for a team coming out of a rebuild, but Roy is a RFA. If he impresses, you can keep him and move him into a RW role somewhere in the lineup moving forward, maybe next to Byfield to get a 6'4"+ monster line.


For the Arizona trade, I don't like losing Faber. But I'd rather the quality be there than give up Turcotte over Vilardi, personally. Maatta is in there so Arizona has an NHL-level defenseman coming back, along with making salary work.

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