I may say go do Graves over Sanheim here

Rather than retaining, Canucks probably send Ferland and his LTIR hit to the Leafs. That's still not enough in return though.

I know Sanheim is good statistically but I don’t know enough about Graves to say who’s better

Does that keep the leafs under the cap? I don’t know much about LTIR. I think if Niemela becomes that too 4 D that with a first round pick is probably around what he’ll get in return

A bigger more sound defensive guy imo don’t know what each of their micro stats are

Just thought he would be better suited to pair with Neimela for a rock solid top 4 going forward

Better defensively, significantly worse offensively. But he'd also be cheaper and Sanheim would probably be a bit wasted if he's behind QH and Severson on the PP pecking order.

You owe me an apology

I guess that’s fair. You can sub Sanheim with Graves and then this team can spend the extra money on buying a 2C to make that third line a second line?

Re: LTIR-No, it doesn't. Ferland to LTIR just clears his contract, it doesn't magically add an extra $3.5 mil to the Leafs cap (unfortunately). Think of LTIR more as something similar to just disappearing the contract, as opposed to raising the cap ceiling. There's obviously more factors to it than just this, but that's the just of it.

I believe it would at least neutralize the cap hit.

I think the leafs would still be above. It’s not a big deal to retain anyways

no. id rather have niemela not play until 2023 than trade him away for a guy thats just going to walk

Severson is a Myers 2.0 to me

I don't think it has ever been mentioned before but Myers to Ottawa is only possible if Zaitsev is going the other way

This would be in 2023-2024 so it would depend on if they had cap space by then

It was sarcastic as it’s been said a million times regarding Myers. Cap space will become tight for Ottawa like for most teams; they might even have to sacrifice a guy down the road

No way in Hell does Pearson fetch the same return as Bjorkstrand

It can be a fourth or whatever. It would be a different year so values may be different and Vancouver doesn’t have to trade him like Columbus did. That being said, it can be a lower pick, it’s not all too important