I'd do that Brannstrom trade.

I mean this in the nicest most honest question asking way, but what do people see in Erik Brannstrom?

From where I sit, I see an undersized offensive skating defenseman who hasn't really shown signs of translating the offense to the NHL yet.

When I watch him play, I get Samuel Girard vibes, but less good at defending and less vision for breakout passes.

I personally don't think he'll ever be a top 4 defenseman, and typically teams don't keep 5'10 dmen on the third pair..

Why is Edm trading their 1st rd pick?

I don't think NJ would be able to get any more from Brannstrom than they would from Smith. If the point of moving on from Smith is that he had a bad sophomore season and they can't afford to let him learn on the job, why try out Brannstrom who has had the exact same problems in Ottawa but without the really strong rookie season hinting at a great NHL player needing to be developed

Cause they really really want two 4th liners..?

Mostly just a change of scenery idea. Low risk high reward for both teams

Read the description for the trade? I’m never going to rule out being the random Ken Holland overpay of the summer though 😂

I wouldn't do this as NJ

Smith was drafted 1 years after Brannstrom, he should have a bit more value.

So yeah, they don't need to add Stillman here. If anything, Sens would need to add a pick (2nd/3rd?) to do the swap.



Same as I was saying before he started playing in the NHL, he will be between a Tobias Enstrom and Torey Krug. Their games not similar to Girard who is more dynamic

One thing to keep in mind to start off is that Pierre Dorion is the Sens GM, he doesn't know what he is doing most of the time. The whole Mark Stone file was a fiasco, and I think he took the best asset possible at the last minute since he is a procrastinator. Brannstrom wasn't a good target at all. First, they don't want to play him on RD for technical reasons. They also don't like smaller players (they barely any player under 6'0 in the whole organization lol). Then when they drafted Jake Sanderson in 2020, it was the "start of the end" for Brannstrom in Ottawa

Copy/paste of something I have said earlier today :

Brännström, Erik : was a top prospect not too long ago. He hasn't taken the NHL by fire so people think he's some kind of bust but he has progressed every year. He has 27 pts in 83 GP since 2020-21 when he was still 21 y/o... His TOI/GP was 19:46 this season and he looked very good in several games. He's just not easy for a smaller D-man to become a Top-4 at such a young age

All that being said, the proposed deal is too much value for him, unless I have missed something and Ty Smith has to be getting rid of