do not Devil my ass
Joined: Sep. 2020
Posts: 4,897
Likes: 4,264
I like the Garland trade, it's definitely fair value.
Zacha, Tatar and Johnsson are all quite expendable, good to get two of them out of the club.
I fail to see the point in trading for Crouse, in part due to that I don't believe him to be an upgrade at all over Johnsson.
But also the fact that it leaves Holtz (and possibly Thompson, Foote and Kuokkanen) out of the lineup.
Since you already packaged Zacha for Garland it'd be fine to just trade Johnsson to ARI for a 2nd, that'd likely be an early pick which could be packaged into some other trade further down the line.
Or even better to use Johnsson to try and pry Vejmelka away from the desert, or for an RHD should Walsh not yet be ready for the NHL.
Swapping Crouse for ARI 2nd, I'd do the forward lines like this:
Sharangovich - Hughes - Mercer
Bratt - Hischier - Holtz
Tatar (or Thompson / Foote / Kuokkanen) - Boqvist - Garland
Wood - McLeod - Bastian
Three lines to dominate the puck and one crashline.
And still plenty of depth.
My point is, you really don't need Crouse in this lineup.
(You don't really need Garland either but he'd most definitely improve the team overall at least)