Joined: Jul. 2021
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I tend to think this is a slight win for Edmonton because they got something for a player who has unfortunately become a cap dump. The fact that Puistola is already 22 and Carolina never bothered to sign him makes me think he’s not much of a prospect, but getting somebody to take a $3M cap hit off your hands without having to throw in a sweetener is a win.
When I saw Puljujarvi’s struggles in Edmonton over the years, I was hoping Carolina might take a chance on him if they could get him cheap, to see if he could click with Aho again, but now I feel like it’s too late. This seems like a waste of cap space for them, but having missed out on the big fish, I guess they’re getting close to a “use it or lose it” situation, so no harm done since they can let Jesse go at the end of the season.
I was hoping they’d use their cap space to get Domi and Kane in a package deal from Chicago, but it sounds like Kane only wants to go to New York, and I can’t see Carolina wanting to help the division rival who eliminated them last year by being the middleman in that deal (unless they could get Domi as their price for retaining 25% on Kane, but I’m sure they could find another team willing to do it for less). I guess they still have enough cap space to bring Domi back, so hopefully they can work something out there. They won’t need to bring in a third team this time; in fact, they won’t even need Chicago to retain on him, which might be a plus since they have already used one of their three retention slots on McCabe and presumably another will go to Kane.