Philly declines

OTT declines, very bad idea to trade for a player after he got a career year

I mean, in that sense, trying to trade for Fiala was a bad idea then. But seriously, Keller had a career year on a very bad team, and he's still very young and could definitely get better from now

fiala did not have 3 "down" years in a row

Yeah but it was still a career year for him. I know what you mean though, that he was decent for years before last year, but Keller is still a good player. His rookie year was decent, yes he had 3 meh seasons after it, but i do believe he figured it out this season. We can't look at the last 3 seasons and say "oh well just because he had just good one year it doesn't mean he's gonna be good" we have to remember that he was 19, 20 and 21 in the "down" years, he was still learning the game at the NHL level, and I think he finally learned it.

dont trade prime assets on a gamble

You can move onto Konecny. Keller is the next captain, they’re not even entertaining offers for him

Keller isn’t getting moved whatsoever. He is the next captian, and not to mention he is under contract for 6 more seasons. The Yotes are pretty much getting a net gain of about 2 firsts. In what way, 1) is that a overpayment, and 2) anywhere even close to being reasonable? On easily the worst team in the league, he has never been below .5 PPG and this year was almost 1PPG. It’s safe to say on a contender he would easily be at least a PPG player, and probably more than that. It would likely take at least Greig, Jarventie, and the 2 firsts just to get Arizona to think about trading Keller. Then you want to add in 2 cap dumps?

Alright, to put it a different way, would you trade Tkachuk for for that package?

Probably not, and that is a fair point, I did not know that he would probably be the next captain for the team. I was doing this trade in case they coyotes goes on a full tear down mode and trade Chychurn and Keller for futures. As for the trade package, I was comparing the one that The athletic had proposed for trading Debrincat for Ottawa https://theathletic.com/3385777/2022/06/29/alex-debrincat-trade-senators-blackhawks/?source=emp_shared_article (It was the Cat for 7OA, Tampa's 2nd, Murray 25% retain, Greig and JBD). Yes Debrincat isn't under contract for long, but he has scored 40 goals twice in his career, had a better career than Keller, and he is the same age as Keller.

The difference between Keller and DeBrincat is what team they play on and who they play with. DeBrincat has played with Kane for the majority of his career, whereas the closest Keller has gotten has been Hall, Shmaltz, and Kessel. There is a very big difference in the talent level each player has played with. I am sure that if they were in each other’s positions, they would have about the same amount of points as the other.

I would argue that Keller is more valuable than DeBrincat for multiple reasons. 1) Keller hasn’t had that star power to help him put up points, and in my opinion, I don’t think he has reached his full potential just yet. 2) Contract situation; Keller has term whereas DeBrincat does not, and DeBrincat will also be more expensive than Keller as well. 3) Leadership qualities.

So comparing 2 players who are the same age who are in 2 completely different situations really isn’t a fair assessment, is it. DeBrincat is extremely talented, but the question does need to be asked: does he have the same career trajectory if he doesn’t play with Kane or any other superstar for that matter? He would have a trajectory more than likely closer to Keller’s career. I can understand where you are coming from, but to the Yotes, from their perspective, they would look at it like Keller is their McDavid so to speak. Way too valuable to the team to trade, but nobody will ever want to give up enough to force their hand into trading him. For Ottawa, I would think Arizona starts with Sanderson and doesn’t back down from there, particularly if they trade Chychrun. But I digress.