Why would the Devils do a sign and trade when they can just sign Gaudreau a week later

Take out the 1st round picks going to Calgary and they're close.

Why wouldn't NJ just wait a week and sign him for free.

~1.5mil cheaper AAV, longer deal

Ottawa rejects . Stutzle is an elite 1C as early as next year . Still finished with 58pts playing with Formenton and Brown and was a point per game player ever since he switched to centre

Exactly. Having the Tkachuks together would be awesome, but Tim's ceiling is sky-high right now

If he didn’t start the season with Tierney , he would’ve been pushing 70 pts

On the flipside, Tkachuk had over 100 points and over 40 goals. Value seems about right for the trade. If Stutzle is off limits (which makes sense, he's your guy), what would be the counter? Norris+?

As of right now, i don’t think the sens would move norris. probably batherson + brown/branstrom instead of stutzle and norris. If the deal doesn’t get done with norris though things could change

Sens would get a top 8 scorer from last year, I'd imagine Flames would want more quality than quanity

Batherson is a ppg player, i’d see some thing like bath, brown, grieg/ formenton/branstrom +7th overal.
But with the man who runs are team you could probably keep matthew tea him and squeeze brady out of him for pretty much nothing