You're basically asking the Blues to send ROR to you in a cap-neutral deal and you're not even giving them this year's 1st? Easy pass on their end.

Yes, and the Blues would scoff at that weak as hell offer.

I imagine they'll offer a conditional 1st. St Louis can pick between this year or next. ROR would make TO so unbelievably deep upfront that a long playoff run seems so much more possible. If they win the cup, they pick 32nd. They may want to take a chance that TO falters next year and they get a higher pick.

Look at the Blues' roster - it is mostly veterans signed with term. If they're gonna call this year a wash and cash in their pending UFAs, the '23 1st is going to be more valuable to them even if it's a couple spots later than where a '24 would potentially be. They want players that can help sooner than later, so that '23 1st has to be part of any VT deal.

Even with that - this deal still doesn't get it done. One of those 3rds assumedly covers the retention, Kerfoot is minimal value as a pending UFA/cap hit ballast going to St. Louis in this deal, and the meat of the deal winds up being a 1st and a 3rd for ROR. Any other team that can match that without sending back cap, or adds a B-tier prospect, is going to beat this deal easily.

I agree this isn't enough, I would add Robertson and some other lesser prospect and drop a 3rd. However I would still make it a conditional pick. I think it gives TO a chance at keeping their 1st this year and if not oh well. Kerfoot certainly has value. Despite what people on here want to believe, has outplayed his contract for the past season and a half. Cap dumps contribute less than their cap hit would suggest. That isn't Kerfoot and before you jump down the consensus belief that "if he had value why hasn't he been traded?" It's because he hasn't been put on the market. If he were to be, he would get a return. Because he's a good player. Luckily for TO cap friendly is not NHL GM's. Public opinion doesn't have that much sway to GM's.

Not saying that Kerfoot has no value in a trade, but in *this* specific trade, he's cap ballast.

Look at from the Blues' point of view: if they're trading guys like ROR & Tarasenko, they've obviously packed it in on this season. What value does a pending UFA like Alex Kerfoot have to them? If you're the Blues GM, wouldn't you rather use that roster spot to audition a younger guy in a bigger role for those 20 games instead of plugging in a guy that's not gonna be with your team next year? Kerfoot only gets included in a lot of these deals to sellers as cap offset, and that means he's not going to be as highly valued as he would be if here were being shopped to another contender.

It would have to be more for ROR of course

I just don't get how everyone seemingly ignores the fact that St Louis can easily just flip him for an asset. Kerfoot just had to remain on St Louis after being traded. Do people think that's a rule? You can't be traded more than once? It's so ridiculous. If he's worth a 3rd for TO to move, wouldn't St Louis be able to get a 2nd? It's just irrational and frankly silly to think that isn't an option and one that is so reasonable and obvious that it makes this argument that Kerfoot is a cap dump, utterly ridiculous.

If you think he's worth a 2nd, go trade him yourself and give me the pick, don't make me do your legwork for you. It's like saying you're gonna get me a cup of coffee and dropping a pile of unground beans on my desk. Technically, yeah, you got me coffee, but do you think I'm gonna value that the same as if you went to Dunkin and brought me back a fresh cup?

It's also something I don't usually treat as a viable option because I also assume any teams selling are going to wait til close to the deadline to make their deals, to get the maximum amount of value out of them. Selling a rental anytime before the week or so before the deadline is uncommon enough that it makes sense to view it that way, to me - and if that's the case, you're really narrowing the window down to get value out of Kerfoot.

Simply put, if you think he's worth a 2nd, fine - just give me one of the 2nds you already have and you can go do the legwork getting it back yourself. Otherwise, as a GM of a selling team, I'm going to look at him as coming back for cap purposes and treat him accordingly.

Simply put, every contender is going to have to send cap back. Pittsburgh would want to send back Zucker or some other bad contract. Boston Would have to send back Nick Foligno or Craig Smith. Guys over 30 who are not worth their contract. No matter what St Louis is going to have to take back cap. Or drastically limit who they can send him to. How is this not a known fact?

Maximizing the assets St Louis ends up with is their GM's job no? He will know cap is coming back. It's a fact, in almost every case it's going to be a bad contract because that's who contenders want to move to make room for better players. TO doesn't have bad contracts. Kerfoot is certainly worth 3.5 million and doesn't hamstring you down the road like a Charlie Coyle would but guess who Boston would love to send back to get ROR? The belief that leaf fans refuse to see they Kerfoot has no value is so blatantly a bias thing that it's silly. Just pick any contender and look at which player they would love to move to get ROR and find me a team that has a better player even a player equal to Kerfoot? Spoiler alert, there isn't one. Everyone has a contract they would like to move or need to move to fit ROR and almost all of them are players with actual negative value. If I am St Louis's GM do I want to add bad cap so I don't have to flip a guy because it's a little more work? Come on

You're literally making my point for me. Yes, St. Louis is probably taking back cap in an ROR deal, I'm sure they're going to be fine with that. But that's all they're looking at it as: money. Whether it's Craig Smith, Jason Zucker, or Alex Kerfoot, it's just money and a name coming back to them, there's no positive value to it for them.

If they're unloading their vets at the deadline, they're not in the playoff hunt. The quality of the player attached to the expiring cap hit means nothing to the Blues, so Kerfoot being a better than Smith or Zucker or whoever else you'd throw in that pile is irrelevant.

Kerfoot, in this deal, is cap ballast. That's the point I made at first, and I'm confused as to why you keep arguing this. St. Louis wouldn't be trading ROR until at or close to the deadline, so the flip-ability of any of these players for an additional asset is moot.

I think you nailed the essential disagreement here. For whatever reason, fans on this site (usually teams of non playoff teams) seem to think all the leverage is with sellers at tdl. It isn’t.
Teams with legit chance to win cup are super motivated to trade for a potential difference maker (like ROR). But teams facing no playoffs and FAs walking for nothing are super motivated to get some assets.
Doing some math - I think the number of teams looking to upgrade at TDL roughly equals number of teams outside of playoffs looking to unload FAs.
This offer for ROR is more than fair; if not Leafs can look at other forwards - there will be many. Same can be said for teams looking for help on D at TDL.

Every year fans of non playoff teams simply overestimate what they can get at TDL; I guess they’re anxious to start thinking about how much better things could be next year.

Except Kerfoot doesn't cost anything to move he brings back assets. Most people coming back are just that, a body coming back they won't be able to do anything with. Kerfoot isn't that. Why is this so difficult to understand for people? This isn't an Andrew Ladd situation. It's a good player who has to go because of the cap not a player that was mistakingly given way too much money and now hurts the team.

All that is true but what just blows my mind is how all these people seem to think Kerfoot costs the Leafs to move. Why? Because he has a contract and TO needs to move him out to make room for a better player so that means we have to pay to move him. Except every time a player with value is moved he brings back value. Sure Patches was moved for essentially nothing but he has some pretty big term remaining and getting out from under that term had a cost. Kerfoot is A) worth his contract and B) a pending FA meaning he is an easy rental move. St Louis would get another player they can do exactly what they are doing with ROR. Send him out for assets. They would have a better grasp on the deadline market anyways. To think they just won't want Kerfoot because they don't want to take back cap is ridiculous, they will take cap back and it is better for them to do so with a moveable asset. Sure beats taking back a worse contract they won't be able to move. That won't get them more assets it gets them a bad deal that limits what they can do in the off season. It's pretty simple.

Do you honestly think that the Blues would be trading ROR any time other than, at best, a day or two before the deadline? This is the same core of the Blues team famously known for being last in the league on January 3 before winning the Cup that very same year. They're not going to pack it in until the absolute last minute - I mean, most sellers typically do the same thing but this is an extreme example of a team that's going to wait it out. How are you flipping out Kerfoot for assets if you don't even have his rights until 2 PM on deadline day?

By doing your work ahead of the deadline. This is just silly

He wins a Selke, Conn Smyte, Stanley Cup all in the same year and you want to throw this garbage at him? When Almost half of the league's scouts show up to watch him play, you can toss out the argument about "the sellers don't have all the leverage"

Because Kerfoot has almost no value for the Blues. They'd need to flip him. The only reason this gets tossed in every Toronto trade for ROR is because you don't want to move any of your top 5 players while St. Louis is giving up arguably the best player on their team.

Yup, that's GMing 101: Sell a player when the demand is lower, weeks out from the deadline, without a bidding war or hard out driving up demand, so you have more time to flip out a guy that you took back as a offsetting cap.

You realize there's a reason why GMs hold on to their trade chips through the last few days before the deadline, right? Do you think Winnipeg got a worse return for Andrew Copp because they waited til the deadline to trade him? Or that the Wild would've ponied up a 3rd for Nic Deslauriers in mid-January? This is really basic stuff that we're talking about here, it's not like there's not years and years of precedent for deals being made at the deadline instead of prior to the All-Star break.

Every year teams make trades before the deadline, actual deadline day deals are becoming less and less common. Dubas for example generally does his work before the deadline. Rutherford was one who did the same. Actual deadline deals seem to be less and less common. Which is why deadline day broadcasts have been so bad the past number of seasons.

So most GM's holding onto their trips until the day of is false.

What scouts ? And how do you know what is the frequency pro scouts spend watching all teams ?
Gimme a break man.
If sellers have all the leverage set the price at four 1st rounders for ROR; ridiculous statement.
And there are other options (players available) and limited buyers; half the league is not actively interested in an ROR trade. Maybe half dozen, if even.

19 deals done between the start of the 2021-22 and 3/14/22 (one week before the deadline)
9 deals done between 3/14 and 3/19
39 deals done on 3/20 & 3/21

This stuff is easily found on the site we're both talking on. More than 80% of the "deadline deals" were done within the last 36 hours before the deadline. I just don't understand why you're staking such a claim on this hill that Alex Kerfoot would be a positive asset for a seller.

And? Dubas does his work early. A GM sets his price and when he gets it, he does the deal. End of story.

Dubas' two big moves were done on the 20th, unless you consider dumping Nick Ritchie's deal a key move.

Again: very easy to find this information on this site

It was yes. Regardless, a lot of the biggest deals happen before the deadline.