1. The NYR trade makes no sense for either team - especially TOR; they get worse.
2. Tyler Johnson is ass.

LMAO Hawks easily decline. That would make Jones and his contract one of the most valuable in the league. Try knies plus a 1st just to get the conversation started

Makes loads of sense for NY who need a top 9 C and W.

Rumor is they are looking at Henrique + Vatrano and the price is Kakko + 2nd. This is a better duo for a similar price.

For Toronto, the top 9 is just broken. Domi/Tavares can't be the 2/3 C and seriously expect to win a round teams will destroy the Leafs. Kakko is solid defensively to balance out Nylander and he has an awesome shot to complement Nylander's playmaking. Johnson is a risk but at least he's shown he can be a 2 way C. Domi has never done that and never will. Mostly looking to catch lightning in a bottle with Johnson. He's playing his way out of the league maybe a move to a contender lights a spark.

Did you even look at the trade lol. It's two 1sts and a top 50 prospect in the league, a top 9 forward and top 4 D. You are likely receiving your 2C, 2LW, 1RD for when you are competing in 3-5 years + two more 1sts.

Johnson was a 2-way C a decade ago; he's not good at all - you're treading off reputation. TOR gives up Domi and Bertuzzi who both get TOR more wins than a duo of Goodrow and Kakko.

I like Minten, but it's a big old stretch to call Minten "a future 2C" and he is not a top 50 prospect in the NHL. I also like Robertson, but he is a borderline bust that can't stay healthy. Lily has promise but is nowhere near being a 1RD. And two late 1sts aren't worth as much as you seem to think. Then there is the $5M cap hit and around $25M in total salary over the next 6 years to account for. On paper, the value CHI is receiving isn't even close. You are blatantly overvaluing assets.

The only way I could see something like this happening is, first, if Jones is willing to do it, and then the retention has to be manageable under Kyle Davidson's rebuild plan, and he would have to have the green light from ownership to forfeit that much cash toward Jones salary, which I highly doubt would be the case, among many other considerations that I am probably unaware of. That would be VERY hard to manage and plan for with all the players that are going to need new contracts within the next 6 years in CHI. The cap is not going to be jumping up over $4M every year, like it is over the next two seasons and players are going to command larger and larger pieces of the pie every year that goes by.

Your wildly optimistic rating of the three Toronto players aside, the retention on Jones alone kills any chance of this deal happening. But on the bright side, Johnson can be had half retained for a 3rd!

WOW, that's simply a really bad take. Nobody is a top 50 prospect and Lillypad is not a top 4 D (especially not a 1RD as you suggest LOL). Robertson can't stay healthy and is a tweener between 3rd line and 2nd line when healthy, Minton has a long way to go as a 2C IF he reaches his ceiling, and 2 late 1sts aren't a lot.

Saying that Minten isn't a top 50 prospect is just completely absurd. The guy just captained Team Canada at the World Juniors, not matter your opinion of him we can go down the list of players who've done that the last 5 being Wright, McTavish, Byram, Cozens and Dach and see that he has a high probability of being a top 6 guy. You can also judge based on his analytics in juniors which put his comparables at Bratt, Virtanen, Perron, Kopitar, Lucic. Again 4 of those guys became top 6 players and 1 became a megastar, Bratt is a star quality producer and Lucic was for a little period. My point is that when comparing Minten's progress to others before him it seems absurd not to thing he'd be a top 6 guy. He made the Leafs out of camp this year, beating out more established players (including Domi) for the 3C spot and he's just 19.

Robertson, you can see my past posts on him, calling him a Bust is also crazy, Reichel is a great comparison for him, at every stage of play since their draft year Robertson has outperformed him and even this year in the NHL by every offensive and defensive metric he's outperformed him (Robertson is just 1 year older) and significantly outperformed him 5x more goals/60, 3.5x more points/60, Robertson even has more hits in less games. So the argument against his physicality is weak. The reason people think he's a bust is because he made the NHL at 18 so they think he's failed to stick for year for the last 5 years but in reality he's only 22, Riechel is 21 and can't stay in the NHL on a horrible team (no offence) the fact Robertson can't still on a team with Matthews, Marner, Tavares, Nylander, Bertuzzi, Domi, Knies doesn't make him a bust, he's just a top 6 guy who isn't getting top 6 time on a team with more than 6 top 6 forwards. He's been fine injury wise this year and none of his injuries as like a concussion or ankle or back they are all breaks which don't have longterm impacts on a career. (Personally I'd love to see him in Chicago, I think he could ride Bedard's wing and get 70+ points next year, he's on pace for 40 playing 10 minutes a night for the leafs right now, just the bump in ice time + powerplay should get him to 50, accounting for better defenders then Bedard should push him to 70)

Lili I agree, he has the skill to be a 1RD but not the IQ, if that clicks he can get there but he's 24 now, young for a D but I think he'll be a 2RD longterm.

I do agree that there is a lot of complexity when it comes to Jones retention. If it was a 3-4 year deal it would be much easier cause by the time the new core needed deals it would be over. And obviously I don't have insights into ownership (not sure if hawks fans might) but from an outsider's point of view the Hawks seem like an organization that really prioritizes winning over money, like they aren't a small market team struggling for cash.

I think a Jones trade is interesting because the options are either:
1. Keep him and by the time the team is competitive you have an overpaid and underperforming 1RD. So you are hoping his "mentorship" today makes up for him messing up the cap in 5 years.
2. Trade him for cheap (like what San Jose did with Karlsson), you can argue they gave him away for free, they got a first and three cap dumps who likely would have cost a 1st (maybe more) to dump.
3. Retain and get a haul, we can debate the value of what I've sent you with the specific players but its essentially the equivalent of 5 late 1sts or 5 non-insignificant parts of your future. At the very least I'd expect if Chicago made this trade that when they make the playoffs in 2028 that Robertson and Minten would be in the top 9, Lili in the top 4 and at least one of those draft picks would have cracked the team. That's 4/20 players 20% of the entire squad that comes from this single trade.

Personally I think that Chicago should retain and make a trade, the haul would be big like this and immediately accelerate the rebuild by 2-3 years. It would also give you the chance to be smart on contracts with guys like Robertson/Lili and lock them down on longterm contracts above their current value so that in 4/5 years they are being paid under their value and if that's done right then the retention could end up being a non-issue when both those guys are getting $2-3M less than they are worth in 3-5 years from now cause you paid them $2-3M more the next 2 seasons.

Hawks wouldnt retain on Jones for that long. That kills the deal alone. Plus, id rather have a slightly overpaid Seth Jones than eating 4m for 7 years and a retention slot.

Lili is 24 lol, he's played in the top 4 all season and analytics show him dominating his minutes, most D don't even crack the NHL till they are around Lili's age now. Josi played his first full NHL season at 23, Keith at 22, Carrier at 25. Lili still has potential to get better.

Minten is a top 50 prospect, you'd struggle to name 49 better prospects (out of all the players already drafted).

Lilly played in the top 4 because the Leafs are noticeably weak in talent at defense. On other playoff contenders, who defensively are strong, he's a 3rd liner. As an example, on the Hawks dynasty teams who were defensively strong, Lilly wouldn't crack the top 4. He does have some potential to get better, but at age 24 and going on age 25 in a month and in his 5th pro season, Lilly doesn't have a ton of upside likely.

See The Athletic where they literally just published the top 75 NHL prospects not yet with a job in the NHL, Minten didn't make the list, only honorable mention along with a handful of other prospects. If you included in the list players who are in the NHL already full-time, Minten falls further. He's a good prospect, he's not a great prospect let's be honest.

The bottom line, you are asking for $33.25M of retention spread over 7 years; that's unprecedented in the league, for a top line defenseman in the league (#2 on most teams) resulting in only a cap hit of only $4.75M for the Leafs. That is a HUGE ask almost every competing team would be all over this deal. A good (not great or top) prospect, 2 late 1sts which are rolls of the dice (33% of late 1sts become a NHL player), a bottom 3 25 year old defenseman, and a often injured middle 6 supporting line player is not getting this deal done.

That is not an absurd statement in the least bit. You are way too high on your own prospects. Minten and Robertson are not worth a late 1st individually, and probably not even when packaged together. Minten was an early 2nd in a weak draft that has not really made the kind of strides you want to see from a "high end" player in his D+2 year in junior. Robertson isn't worth the pick he was drafted with, I would struggle to even pay a 3rd for him, between his size, injury history, and inability to stick at the NHL level. No one ever said Reichel was worth more, either. There is a difference between a players worth to the team that drafted them and has invested the time in them, and that same players worth to the rest of the league, though. Again, I like both players, but you are overvaluing them. It is highly unlikely CHI would do that trade with any retention, let alone that much. Personally, I wouldn't knock KD for accepting something like this. Although, it has the potential to look VERY bad in hindsight, it is bold and exciting, whether the players involved pan out or not. But it's not my bank account either, and I'm also not a GM. Trades like this just don't happen and could easily be grounds for KD getting fired.

Yeah. That too! CHI could get a MUCH better package if they were willing to retain 50% of Jones contract and he were open to a move.

Recommend you listen to JD Bunkis' podcast from today with Elliott Friedman who said teams have been valuing Cowan, Minten and Knies above the Leafs 1st.

Just listened. That isn't what he said at all. He said "Some teams have asked about guys like Cowan, Knies, and Minten, but TOR is not interested in moving them." Which happens in the NHL constantly every year, and teams are always more reluctant to move their established prospects. They draft guys based on contention windows and established timelines, when they move guys that changes the timeline and possibly puts them in an awkward position where they don't have any cap space and have to move someone they don't want to move and they don't have an affordable replacement. That is entirely different from saying "teams value them more than a 1st." Every trade is different, every team is different, everyones needs are different, and things can change every day. Like Friedge also went on to say, things can change, if something falls into their lap that is too good to pass up, they might be willing to move their prospects.

Also, I like Friedge, and he is a knowledgable guy, but he is basically the TMZ of the hockey world. People go to him to drop the things that they want said publicly, and he also generates speculation based on small amounts of information. He generally doesn't say things that don't have some level of truth to them, but it still should all be taken with a grain of salt. A lot of these things are intentionally put out by front offices to guys like him to create buzz, manipulate narratives, to put feelers out there for possible opportunities, and to garner interest and test the market. He is basically a tool for front offices of different teams to communicate arbitrarily and indirectly.

Very true. It does seem that he gets "manipulated" a lot. Like the Pettersson stuff. I'm 100% sure someone in the Canucks front office leaked that to put pressure on Pettersson to sign.

Definitely. Anyone who doesn't think media manipulation is part of the business side of things is pretty naive. Sports media is constantly being manipulated. And the pundits know it, too. It's their job, after all. Just like regular media is always being manipulated. And even Friedge will come right out and say that before he says certain things. Like "Look, I don't want to get in trouble here, but...." or "this speculation but I am hearing things that lead me to believe..." and so on.