MTL won't retain on Anderson and it's not worth it for the Leafs to overpay for him as Hughes wants.

Drop the retention or remove everything except the first and add Niemela and Knies

Anderson even at 2 mil retained and giving up 5 pieces, no thanks. Put those pieces towards something much better.

This can't be a serious post...

I just can't see the Habs retaining 2 mil AAV on Anderson for the next 4.5 years.

You can't be serious, a bunch of crap we don't need and a really late first isn't getting Anderson without retention. Adding 8 mil retention over 4 years is going to cost a crap load more than you want to give up.

CHI declines.

You’re giving up a lot of futures for ‘meh’ players. None of them move the needle but you gut the prospect pool, big no from me

While I agree on some of that, I just cant see Anderson fetching a ton more than a 1st. Hes signed long term for 5.5mil and yet:

His best season was MANY seasons ago in 2018-2019
Injury history
On pace for another below .5pts a game season.
He makes 5.5mil for another 5 yrs
He doesn;t produce as a top 6 forward, hes on pace for 37pts

I just can;t see him as good value at 5.5mil for 5 yrs based on his production since 2018-2019. Not saying MTL is desperate to get rid of him, or that they have to, but I don;t think he and his contract have immense value. Hirvonen (who is worth a first in his development), Modenhauer and a 3rd for Anderson isn;t a bad shout

The retention was just a shout, because I think Anderson should be in the 4mil range and thats something TOR could stomach and move forward with, but obviously MULTIPLE year retention of 2mil is at least a 1st and a bit more

If Hughes is retaining it's probably 1m max which is a manageable amount to have in dead cap. Leafs should be able to fit 4.5m next year and moving forward even if they resign Bunting for 4.5m. That being said, if they are trading their top assets for one guy, I would be surprised if it's for a top 9 forward who is a decent fit for their needs (perfect type of player but they want a LH shot). Leafs would be better off trading all that for Crouse even if Hughes was willing to retain 2m on Anderson.

This 🫡

1. His contract outside of this site is viewed as good value
2. Yes, his best season was many years ago, however neither of the teams have not been great since that season
3. Yes his ppg is below .5 bhut he is not paid to put up points and be a physical presence, just goals and he has done exactly that. is 2020-21 he had 17 points in 52 games (only missed 4 games) in a 56 game season, he was on pace for 27 over 82 games. in 2021-22 he had 19 goals in 69 games (pro-rated 23 goals) and only missed 11 games in two separate stints and one was covid related. This year he is again on pace for 23 goals and has missed only 2 games thus far, incase you weren't keeping track that is 17 games total over 189 possible games, to put that into perspective Mathews has missed almost the same amount of time (18 games) over the same 189 game period, does that make Mathews injury prone or does it make the whole Anderson is injury prone blown out of proportion? my vote is the latter, the difference is the shoulder surgery that kept Anderson from playing more than 26 games in the 2029-20 season.
4. I think you overvalue Hirvonen, I don't think he is worth a top 32 pick more like a pick in the 40-50 range (especially in this draft). The reason I said a bunch of crap we don't need though is we have enough small forwards we don't need 2 more, Kerfoot isn't an upgrade on Dvorak and we aren't moving a center so he is not needed and the picks are likely really late so the 3rd is more like a 4th. I apologise, I did not mean the quality was crap just that it was a lot of what we don't need.

Hawks decline. Abramov is a meh prospect and Robertson is damaged goods. They'll get better offers for Domi half retained

1. His contract outside of this site is viewed as good value

Only in Montreal, hes a 3rd liner making 2nd line money

Dreger (the Habs hater and Leafs homer) like 3 days ago said his contract was viewed as a good long-term contract around the league.

are you seriously arguing that Josh Anderson at his full cap hit should get a better package than Bo Horvat with retention got?

Where exactly did I say that? What I said was that the package didn't contain anything we needed and as such if we are just trading for what we don't need then the retention should be dropped. If the OP doesn't want to drop the retention then 8 mil retained over 4 years then that will cost more than a rental player for sure.

misread the "or" as an "and", my bad!

Still - even if you want to count one of those prospects as payment for the retention, I still think Hirvonen/1st/3rd for Josh Anderson with Kerfoot coming back is a better package than what Vancouver got for Horvat. Hirvonen is a lesser prospect than Raty, but Vancouver had to take 2 years of Anthony Beauvillier at $4.15M to get Raty & the protected 1st - this is an unprotected '23 1st, plus a 3rd, plus a better, cheaper cap offset player in Kerfoot who's off your cap this summer instead of next. At the very least you can make a case that this is pretty much equal value to the Horvat package, and if you switched the prospects to Niemela & Knies I think it becomes much better. Just too much for a guy with 14 goals this season.

Lol, calling dreger a leafs lover is peak habs fan. That dude spends more time pumping andersons tires than he does the entire leafs team

The point is 4 years at 2 mil per year is going to cost an exuberant amount, like 2 top prospects minimum in a flat cap world. The other issue, if you read my comment to Hammerwise, is that we already have a plethora of small (under 5'10") forwards so Hirvonen and Moldenhauer offer no real value to us (except as trade pieces)

The retention cost is tough for me to get a handle on, because the only time we've really seen a team retain that much for that long is Arizona with the OEL trade (basically 6x$990K, or a hair under $6M when all's said and done.) The problem is, that trade also had Vancouver dumping $12M worth of Loui Eriksson, Jay Beagle, & Antoine Roussel - so while the Coyotes got back a 1st/2nd/3rd combo, they also gave up the two best players in the deal (OEL/Garland) while retaining a ton of money. It's uncharted waters and incredibly hard to figure out what the value would be.

As far as the prospects, I'll concede that you're going to be more familiar with the depth in Montreal. I think the values of those players is acceptable for the trade, though, but can understand if you think you've already got enough of that type of player and don't want more.

I think the best course of action for the Habs is to hold onto Josh Anderson til the summer. No team that would benefit from a veteran power forward is going to be able to take on his cap hit without sending significant assets back or getting retention, so any trade is going to be weirdly balanced. This summer, when teams will have to deal with replacing departed UFAs and have a little more wiggle room under the cap, I think the Habs will be able to realize better value for him without having to waste a retention slot.

Agreed on the best course of action, as for the players fit the type of mold of Hirvonen and Moldenhauer, we currently have Caufield, Gallagher (injured but will return at some point), Harvey-Pinard, Byron (injured and likely done in Montreal), Richard, Simoneau, Mesar, Roher, Farrell, Guindon and Rhett Pitlick as 5'10" or smaller forwards in the organization. Caufield and Gally are here to stay, RHP is carving out a niche as well, Farrell could be with the Habs next year or the year after same with Mesar and Richard and I would say that all of them are as good of prospects as the Leaf's 2.