islanders accept

Chicago does not except plus hawks are not trading to st. Louis doubt Kane would waive to go there.

Why would we trade either of them to our biggest rivals?

Better teams within the division means CHI is lower in the standings, which means better odds for CHI getting a top 3 pick in next years draft. It's only one season and, according to this trade, we add two more 20231st round picks to the pool. I wouldn't mind this at all.

I understand the Toews "what-if" is sort of fun but like Kane is pretty much an empty calorie goal scorer at this point where Toews is like the opposite case- solid underlyings but isn't coming up on the scoresheet at all. Even if they were both good, idk, screw those guys

I'm a pretty big "who cares what team they are/what division they play in/etc, if they have the best offer on the table you take it" kind of guy for 99% of trades, but like there's some trades you just don't do. This is a good deal for the Hawks just based on value but idk if two late firsts is really worth giving your two franchise players at half retained to your biggest rival. And I'm not sure it makes the Blues much better or worse considering they're losing Tarasenko too, the team on paper is still decently worse than last years team, so it might not even help you in the division thing much.

You should be put in AGM jail* for even suggesting such things.

*= And also, there should be an AGM jail.

Well, it would automatically make CHI worse increasing the gap between them and all the other teams in the division. So yeah, it helps. Also, I doubt NYI's will be much better than last season.

Well for one I think the Islanders would be better this year, especially if they get Tarasenko. Not wrecked by covid, not starting the first two months on the road waiting for a stadium to be built, upgrading Chara for Romanov and upgrading Bailey for Tarasenko. They've definitely gotten better. Whether that actually translates into enough wins in that division, I guess who knows.

But for Chicago I think the issue is less that you need to increase the gap between other teams in the division and more that you need to increase the gap between the Coyotes, and with Chicago on the bottom, which I don't think they can do even with losing Toews and Kane. Arizona got clearly worse this offseason too, and especially if Chychrun moves yet, I think Arizona is losing the defense and goaltending battle to Chicago every day of the week and Chicago can't do anything about that. Not to mention that by accepting Bailey in this trade you're more than replacing Toews' production last year. So if that's the case, idk is it really worth the embarrassment just to have two or four more points between yourself and Colorado and still be looking down at Arizona? This is especially true considering anyone picking in the top three next year are pretty much certainly (as certain as you can get with prospects anyway) getting players that would have gone first overall in any of the last three year's drafts. Bedard's the ideal choice but it's not Bedard or nothing.

I just meant as it currently stands, the Isle's haven't gotten better. But yeah, Tarasenko would definitely help, Romanov might help, and Kadri will definitely help. Idk about the Arizona aspect, though. I think they are currently better than CHI. Although, if a whole bunch of players bounce back and the coaching change has a positive effect, CHI could be improving quite a bit. AZ hasn't changed much and they were tearing up the NHL at the end of the season. If they take even a small step forward in 22-23 and show some more consistency, they will be better than CHI.

Also, I never said Bedard or nothing. Of course that would be the best case scenario, but Michkov or Fantilli would be game changing as well. Although, and I know how good Michkov is, but the whole russian aspect of it makes picking him kind of scary. Relations with the Russian government don't need to get much worse before we start seeing players from Russia not coming back to the NHL, and I don't think people realize the extent of that. Everyone seems to think it can't happen and would just be crazy, but it is a very realistic and imminent possibility. Plus, he is already locked up in the KHL for a while, so as it stands we wouldn't even see him in the NHL until 2026 at the earliest. Also, judging by how they drafted this year, picking almost exclusively North American players, I wouldn't be surprised if they got the second pick and passed on Michkov in favor of Fantilli or someone else depending on how things shake out.