A lot to pay for a third-pairing enforcer. Montreal would easily accept

Paying that much for a bottom pair d man?

That could one day be Skjei's future successor? That would be the bet that Carolina would be taking here.

Well atleast we didn’t overpay /s

X is cool and all but paying that much for a 3rd pair defender is just silly. 3rd pair defenders are easily found at day 3 plus of UFA for very little. Add in he takes a ton of penalties which we don’t like.

He is really nothing more than a bottom pair enforcer. You're better using those assets on better players

If I'm not mistaken, Carolina typically does not overpay or use big assets at the TDL.

I love Xhekaj but thats a lot to give up for him. We have to wait a while, but i'd rather have Nikishin who plays a similar physical game and is tearing up the khl, tied for 1st in points among d-men.

Not for rentals. For guys that have term, they've never had that issue. Trocheck, Skjei were both deadline pickups before Covid, Nino was about 2 months before the deadline too. They don't spend big on rentals.

Yes, that was what I was remembering. Grazie.

This is a big pile of nope. Nikishin right now may actually be better than Wifi. If that's the price, you tell Kent Hughes to pick one of the three rivers to jump into.

For Kuzmenko, that is a LOT. Dude is good, but he's also got 30 games of NHL experience and he's not played for a good team. Seems like a lot.

This is why you should stick to your own team

Canes would be paying a premium to have a defenseman that's the same age and is already in the NHL. Nikishin could be as good or better but will not be an NHLer until 2025. I think that an extra two and a half seasons of Xhekaj is worth a lot to Carolina, especially because Skjei is probably walking and getting a large payday from someone in 2024.

Xhekaj has been one of the worst defenceman in the league statistically, doesn't make sense for Car. He isn't going to be a top 4 dman

Issue with that is that Arber is in the NHL, but he's CLEARLY got inferior upside. Nikishin is the best defenseman in Russia. There's no doubt of that. He's probably the best defenseman not in the NHL right now. It doesn't make sense to move the rights to that kind of player (the rights they would hold indefinitely) for a guy that would be 3rd pairing. Xhekaj doesn't have the skating ability to replace Skjei in this system, not to mention, Carolina could also just replace Skjei in free agency. They could replace Skjei with Ronan Seeley and use in-house options. Or, they could just re-sign Skjei himself. Paying this kind of premium for a 3rd pairing defenseman on a team that is going the wrong way in the standings is probably not the best of ideas.

The thing is that there is going to be a one year gap between when Skjei goes to UFA and when Nikishin is ready for the NHL. How do you bridge that? Either through a trade like this or a one year UFA stopgap. The question is what options are going to be available that offseason and which one is willing to sign for only one year (especially one that can give comparable production)?

They’re right though? Xhekaj is fun but he’s a low upside enforcer that’s playing bottom pairing minutes on a bad team. Realistically he’s a 7D on most lineups, but people love grit and a good story.

Xhekaj Is decent but you’re giving up a top 4 defenseman level package for him. Not sure why.

Kuz isn’t bad but Drury really does help the C pipeline if you aren’t bringing in a NHL level center. Aho, KK, Staal and a bunch of question marks after that if you trade Drury.

Funny comment coming from someone who likes to single out players from non-Toronto teams often.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that Xhekaj is just a very physical bottom pair d man

I'm not even a Montreal fan myself but people of bad faith just love to assume that he won't progress. He went from CHL to NHL right away, He's leading all rookie d-men in goals. That includes Sanderson Power Addison Guhle...

No, just Kotkaniemi as long as Carolina fans live in delusion.

Dude is in the NHL because he plays for a team without as much established NHL talent on the blue line. Again, a nice story but the guy would be a 7D or in the AHL for most other teams in the league.

He’s about to turn 22 in a few weeks. Making the jump straight from the CHL is great, but less impressive than if he were in his D+1 or something.

He’ll probably continue to develop and become a more consistent player, but realistically he’s unlikely to become more than a bottom pairing NHL regular. For an undrafted guy, that’s pretty awesome. But let’s not kid ourselves and put him in the same conversation as Power, Sanderson, etc.

Continuing with the I don’t know what i am talking about rhetoric i see

Its clear you are oblivious to how old nhl dmen actually are

https://www.nhl.com/stats/skaters?report=bios&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20222023&seasonTo=20222023&gameType=2&position=D&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,15&sort=birthDate&page=0&pageSize=50

He is the 6th youngest dmen to be a nhl regular this year. The average draft position of everyone younger than him is 9th overall.

Its pretty stupid you cant see the middleground between bottom pair and potential franchise dman. His realistic projection at this point is a 3-4 dman.

His age would put him in the 2019 draft class, so it's still impressive. Many NHLers are NHLers because their team lacked talent and it allowed them to see NHL ice. Think Jacob Middleton who was looking like a career AHLer and probably never would have been called up if not for the Sharks blueline. 5 goals, 12 points, positive goal differential on that bad team isn't worthy of a "career 7th D" label. Thats macdermid or borowiecki. I disagree with the value above whatsoever