Quoting: GMDannyB
It’s a lottery pick almost for sure and prospects like Sillinger don’t get traded like ever. Those two are basically automatically off the table
Quoting: KingofRnR
We’re not letting Lindholm walk for nothing and he’s both an excellent and valuable player, so yeah, we’ll be getting top quality assets for him, which again, other than the 1st there’s none there really
Sure, Sillinger’s still young, but he’s been regressing, not progressing. He’s a Big ? at this point. A change of scenery would likely do him good
Sillinger is 20, he could probably use some AHL seasoning, and he's not putting up points, but he has looked okay for the most part. That said, I don't have anything against building a Lindholm package around him, and a package like 2024 1st top-10 protected, Sillinger, and Peeke would be fine imo. He's probably not off the table entirely, but it would take someone like Lindholm to make him available.
The biggest issue is simply that Columbus isn't competing this year. The FO can think otherwise, but the product on the ice just isn't good enough yet, and it's not one Elias Lindholm away from being a playoff team, let alone a contender. So Columbus would be silly to offer much more than Sillinger + 1st + RD for Lindholm, and that package likely gets beat out by a contender looking to add a great 2C at the deadline.
We're simply not willing to pay out that much for a luxury player that doesn't necessarily fit the window when we're not ready to compete and he may be available July 1st anyway.
Also, Texier is totally unavailable for personal reasons (it would jettison any goodwill toward the FO to trade him after what he went through and having him finally come back). And we wouldn't be taking back 2 defenseman in a trade shipping out 2 defensemen...the whole reason they're available is because we have too many. Finally, you'd get more for Zadorov looking elsewhere.