Once a Kings Fan Too
Joined: Jun. 2018
Posts: 40,684
Likes: 25,513
Hellebuyck to Los Angeles would seem to be reasonable on the surface. But there are several problems with it. Number one: the cap situation. Los Angeles has no cap surplus right now (we have $7.5 million in cap space currently, with Gabe Vilardi, Rasmus Kupari and Tobias Bjornfot to re-sign as well as other obligations), so any trade has to be at least cap-neutral for us. And our cap situation next year (i.e., for the 2024-2025 season) is almost equally fraught, because Hellebuyck would probably be asking for at least $8 million on his next contract. Number two: the roster situation. Acquiring Hellebuyck gives us three goalies, which means we'd have to bury Petersen in the AHL while still bearing the burden of his $3.85 million cap hit there -- that's essentially depriving us of that sum against the cap. The alternative, trading Copley under duress, is hardly more palatable. Number three: the first-round-pick situation. We traded away our 2022 first in the Fiala deal and the 2023 first in the Gavrikov-Korpisalo deal, so it's unlikely that we'd have the imminent first-round pick that the Jets would probably require as an element of a Hellebuyck trade.
I just don't see it unless it's along the lines of Arvidsson, Durzi, Petersen and our 2024 second for Hellebuyck without retention, which I doubt is all that appealing to Winnipeg fans.