Valarmov only has 1yr left on his deal I believe, how about Philadelphia's 2nd in 2023

Just trade Bailey for a pick/pick swap. Absolutely no reason to buy him out

I don’t think Varly is going to be traded for a second round pick. Especially after the Edmonton series. Look at what Kuemper fetched and you are closer to what Varly will get. Someone will pay for a legit #1 goalie.

IMO the worst case for scenario for Bailey is going to be similar to the Leddy deal where you end up taking back another Richard Panik type deal, but you get a second.

Yeah could definitely see that, but it’d have to be a contract that gets buried easily

Jackets accept

Yeah that’s what I meant. Fans say bailey has no value because it’s a much more appealing idea to get a pick for Josh Bailey than someone like Andrew Ladd. People are listing JVR as a cap dump guy too, but JVR will have trade value at the deadline and is expiring. Why would you need to dump him?

That's cool, don't think it will be the Sabres, not with 1yr left

It’s the same reason fans point to Varly’s age. We already saw what Fleury fetched at the deadline, but I’d argue Varly was the better goalie this year anyway. Meanwhile, the same fans calling Varly old are out there arguing Varly will waive his clause so he can get an extension. So he’s old and expiring but you want to extend him…. Ok then.

I don’t disagree with you. Sabres and Isles are a bad trade partners imo.

I do wonder if we can move Bailey to a team that has a retired player making money. An example would be trade Bailey to Montreal for Shea Weber and a 2nd. Essentially just buying a 2nd and saving cap

NJ won’t move a first, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they put together a good enough package that the Isles are willing to make a trade with a division rival.

Definitely some team's out there that will check in

I wouldn’t be willing to take an LTIR contract back. Doesn’t seem necessary. Unfortunately some fans on this site are going to say whatever helps their argument regardless of whether or not it’s factual. Isles won’t have an issue moving Bailey and if they did I would just keep him. He’s still somewhat productive and it’s a bad look to trade him when he is 7 games away from 1,000.

I’m not remotely worried about moving him anyway. I don’t think they will make a big trade or get a big name free agent. My bet is they bring back Nick Leddy the same way the blues brought Perron back after his stint in Vegas.

I’m willing to bet Lane Lambert will get more production out of last years forwards than Lou did. And if they add someone who can generate zone entries/exits on the backend then I think they will be fine.

If you want to discuss facts, there’s really no argument that Bailey was even an average player last season. Going by your last statement , it seems as if facts don’t matter much to you, keeping a player to hit a certain amount of games is a losers mentality. There is not a winning organization in the NHL who operates that way.

I feel like the Devils are a good fit in the sense that he really won't have to move if he doesn't want to - I'm not sure exactly where he lives during the season, but he wouldn't be the first person commuting from the Island to Newark for work.

I’m just referencing that he has trade value that’s all. I’m not a huge fan of publicly available metrics, because at the end of the day you have to be able to trust whoever is tracking like zone entries/exits and other micro stats out there.

I liked his fit with Pageau and Palmieri and he’s a leader in the room. At the end of the day I don’t think guys will be too happy if you trade him when he’s 7 games away from 1,000. I just think that the mental aspect has to be taken into consideration, but that’s just my opinion.

He might have some trade value, I personally think he won’t return more than a 5th rd pick, it’s more likely they’ll have to pay to get rid of him IMO. Every single stats platform available has Bailey as a below average forward. It’s not just 1 or 2. If the isles plan on competing next year, he can’t be on the team

Pageau and Palmieri were better without Bailey. Bailey was among the leaders in ice time last season which is a big reason the isles were arguably the most unwatchable team in the NHL.

What you’re describing is a country club atmosphere , which is why the isles were the laughing stock of the league for so long. It doesn’t matter what the others players think, they’ll get over it. And I guarantee you the players that drive the success of the team don’t care. Barzal, Pelech, Pulock, sorokin, Dobson etc. it really doesn’t matter if clutterbuck is upset that Bailey gets moved.

Unless they get Johnny Hockey there won’t be any significant changes. I think Lou’s press conference where he discussed internal improvement and adding a puck moving defenseman made that obvious.

I don’t think the isles r in a position to make a big move to contend. They can make a couple smaller ones like adding a lefty d man, but this team needs to show they can compete next season before you make that big trade.

He also mentioned hockey trades with the forwards, Bailey should be at the top of the list even if it means taking back a defenseman with a slightly bloated contract similar to Bailey