i dunno about gudas' contract even with the retention, but i could see lybushkin being considered

I do. That’s not happening. Gudas is borderline elite based on his analytics or at least he was when I looked about a month ago. You’re not getting him for an overrated Berggren.

I second this

first time i've heard of him being rated outside of Detroit lol

Gudas is a very good dman but border line elite is really stretching it. His 33 is on a 3yr contract making $4M a season and his previous contract he was making $2.5M a season. If he was truly elite someone would've offered a lot more money. That being said I don't think Anaheim should make this trade and I also think it's poor asset management to use Berggren in a deal for a 33yr old dman.

He also specified "this year" as he's had damn good metrics since he donned purple. Is it a temporary thing? Probably, do we have any interest in selling the Butcher? No, he honestly might be the next Captain (the kids who will become it aren't ready yet, and Gudas exudes everything Verbeek wants in a hockey player, theory is he's captain for two seasons until a McTavish/Carlsson is ready for the C)

That’s why I said elite analytics. He’s a very good 2nd pair guy who’s underrated offensively. He’s also been the perfect partner for guys like LaCombe and Vaak to help develop their game this season. He’s worth every bit of that 4M for the ducks. And unless he falls off a cliff 4M is a solid number for a 2nd pair guy.

Berggren is also a bit overrated by DET guys. He’s not really a top 6 guy like a lot try to make him out to be.

I'm sorry but with how much demand there is for good RHDs someone would've offered more money. He signed that contract in the off season and according to CapFriendly there are 40 active RHDs making more money than him. Now users on this site may not take time to look up all the advanced stats but NHL teams do when considering signing or trading for player. They even monitor sites like CapFriendly, Reddit, HFBoards and any other site where NHL players and prospects are discussed. So saying another team overlooked a stat that proves Gudas is an elite defenseman just won't happen.

As I said before Gudas is a very good defenseman but he is not elite or even borderline elite.

I mean, he was highly sought after in the off-season, I think half the Canadian teams were in on him, he just had no desire to play in Canada.

3 years in sunny Southern California for his final contract is a hell of a nice retirement package. I'm not saying Anaheim wasn't also the highest bidder, but the teams who were after his services were also short on cap space or in a market he didn't want to play for, or in Torontos case, both.