- Burns was a mediocre at best player when traded - Lost the trade a bit at the time and honestly, depending on what they get for Duclair at the deadline may turn out to be fair (since Lorentz was dealt for Burns) + Makiniemi has starting/tandem potential
- EK deal hasn't happened so not sure how that can be criticized. There's 2 months until training camp, the time when EK was traded last time
- Pulli & Okhotiuk are seen as 7th D-men CURRENTLY while Havelid, Cagnoni and Pohlkamp are all seen as steals from where they were selected and have great NHL potential.
- Why wouldn't Peterson be here? He's a very good player, an RFA, young & the Sharks have the cap to lock him up - If he can help the team, he'll get signed
- If it wasn't Musty it was Lindstein, Nadeau, Cristall, etc. - This was a great draft to have a late 1st. We got lucky Musty dropped a bit but it was going to be a good prospect regardless
- Exactly - Duclair was healthy in the playoffs and tore it up. He could get a 1st plus if he's playing on our top lines - he was picked up to be flipped for assets (which then you can connect back to the Burns trade)
- Zadina also came here because he'd have a chance in a bigger role, Grier jumped on that opportunity to sign him, whether Hertl played a part or not. Hertl isn't the only Czech player in the league
- Not sure how you can say we fumbled this year - We traded our minute munching d-man, our top forward, shopped around our 100 pt d-man. He understands that we need to take a step back to get better assets

There's no reason to rush an EK trade. We're in the dogdays of the offseason. GMs are on vacation spending the few months they have with their family. EK is in Sweden. literally no reason to push for a bad return just to get it done sooner. the last time EK was traded was literally during the preseason. These types of deals don't happen at this time of year very frequently

50% retention would be awful. Pitt doesn't have the assets to get EK at 50%. SJ ownership is among the best in the league in terms of trusting the GM in spending to the cap to make hockey moves.

The only way SJS is going to get anything worth while for their rebuild is with 50% retention, and the cost of paying a third party to do that would be as much or more than what SJS wants for him in the first place. Sure, it MIGHT become slightly difficult to navigate in the last year or two, but not so much that it should be off the table. Unless they are bluffing on the rebuild and want the cap space to retool next summer, but that is extremely obvious and any GM with half a brain would see right through it and leverage the heck out of SJ or walk away. Which it already sounds like teams are doing.