How bout we don't overpay a 32 year old Gudas and keep Kulak instead while investing the rest of that money into a 4th line winger and then we trade Lavoie (who isn't really all that) with our second for a cheap bottom pairing d-man (Mayfield type guy). Desharnais is good but Kulak is a lot better imo

kulak is very good i agree but with Ekholm-Nurse-broberg on the left side i think his 2.75M and ceci's 3.25M would be better used on a proven top 4 RHD like Gudas who his top 20 in Defensive impact over the last 3 seasons while playing against top top/middle 6 players Gudas is good at holding the line and disrupting the cycle which is where nurse and ceci both struggle so i think Nurse-Gudas would be a good pair 5v5, kulak is better than Broberg, Vinny and Neimo but those 3 for 2.2M combined bring more value than just 1 player on the 3rd pair

Lavoie has really picked his game this year, his shot has always been NHL ready but his skating, consistency and compete level have been the issue and since being scratched earlier in the year he has looked like a totally different player and scouts that i have talked to said that he has a real chance at pushing for a bottom 6 role in edmonton next year along with Noah philip who are both solid on their skates, He also said bourgault would need another year in the A to work on his strength and balance but has all the skill to be a very good middle 6 player

Ceci is better and cheaper than Gudas, so you've made the defense corps worse.

Konecny is an upgrade on Yamamoto though, so it's probably a wash. All it cost was next year's first to not improve the team.

ceci is not better than Gudas, data over the past 3 seasons show that Gudas has had a greater impact on his team defensively than both Ceci and nurse coming in the Top 20 D-men (not saying he's top 20 but his D impact is top 20) in the league over that span where as ceci and nurse are around 50th and 30th respectively, Gudas is also the better proven penalty killer and has been crushing it this season in FLA

He is 100% better than ceci especially this season and analytics back that up and Konecny would absolutely kill it with draisaitl unlike yamo who struggles to finish

Your "data" isn't adjusted to QoC, clearly. There's a reason why Gudas gets sheltered third pairing minutes while Ceci faces NHL's best every night.

Until you understand the difference your player valuation will be off.