You forgot about Holtz but otherwise this is more or less what I want to see. Gudas would be awesome.

2 empty roster spots and $5m in the tank could be useful. My vote would be to extend Severson. But there could also be some cheap pieces coming available after July 1st (like Bjorkstrand, Pacioretty last year).

I don’t know about Gudas. Not sure he has the puck-skills to play our brand of hockey. But would be nice to have a thumper back there.

If Miles Wood can play our system, Gudas will be a perfectly fine depth defenseman for us

Gudas is a dman. Wood is a forward on 4th line, which plays different role. A team could deploy a “pucks down low” approach with one line. But defense plays with other three lines which are designed for speedy transition game. The system depends on smart puck control on back-end to kick off transition.

Big hitters like Gudas, Schenn are useful at times, but it makes it harder to gain possession, which forces forwards down lower in d-zone, which limits transition.

In this situation I think you'd resign severson (ideally with as little trade protection as possible) instead of gudas at maybe 5-5.5 mill