I wouldnt be against it but id rather trade krug first

Sure

Mmm I dunno. If Faulk continues showing he's 100% fit again, I don't love it or hate it. A little worried about Lacombe's D zone work, but he is still developing. Maybe hold the phone until summer.

Max Jones and Brett Leason are both better than Greer.

Hakanpaa isn't a signing that will happen because that's Tristan Luneau's spot to lose next camp. If the kid can't hack it full time they'll pluck a guy off waivers again (aka Gus Lindstrom).

I worry about how we'd replace Faulk. I think it's more ideal to shop Krug as he's replaceable. The issue with offseason speculation in a deal like this is the market for RHD is pretty barren as is. If this were a draft day trade I could see how it could work out favorably for the Blues. But if it were to be afterwards, I don't know if you can really feel comfortable with Kessel as a speculative 2RHD going into a season. Alot can obviously change, and I get the general idea behind it is trying to clear out some spots on defense while getting a prospect. But it further log jams our 2/3/depth LHD situation while creating a bigger hole. It's may be a necessity that has to be lived with though.

LeCombe can play right side. I agree more ideal to trade Krug but also harder to do so

Can he play it well enough to be a productive RD2? I like what Kessel has shown, but i also liked what Tucker shhowed last year. It's too early to put all the chips on him into being a top 4 guy. I'm very comfortable with him paired with Krug in more of a 3rd pair role though. I'm just not sure I'm comfortable with Lacombe and whomever we'd have to sign to be a top 4 pair

Something needs to change with the def in my opinion. Faulk still doesn’t look like himself after coming back from injury. I like Kessel more than others though probably and think he can hold down 2 spot

When LaCombe hits his peak, maybe. Right now definitely not (IMO). For a lot of the early parts of the season the Ducks threw the kid out on the right side of the top pair with Fowler and the pair struggled to say the least. The analytics of both are pretty brutal because of it.

They stopped doing that when it became obvious that it wasn't working. From the mid point of the season roughly LaCombe has played mostly the left side and they cut his minutes back. He's looked better in a more appropriate usage for his current development. I would say he still plays too many minutes in a lot of games. 25 against Minnesota a couple games back for example, but that's a function of the whole team being complete ass in that game.

He can play the right, he did it in college, but this year he has played way better on the left (part of that too though is how terrible most of the Ducks D has been). He has played his best hockey paired with Gudas. He struggled a bit at the start of the season playing pretty much exclusively on the right with Fowler, so for a still developing defensemen, I probably wouldn't advise playing him on the right side