tomh009

I can't see that anyone would give him eight years of term at 32, but almost every quality player would be looking for 4-5 years at that point, taking him to 36 or 37, at which point he would surely not be producing at the level of the contract, effectively making him a drag on our cap at that point. Now, it could be that Toffoli would have really loved the Habs and the city, and would have given them a nice short contract, because he really is a nice guy. And maybe Lehkonen would sign a long-term contract at $3M per, because he really bleeds bleu, blanc et rouge. These are of course things that can happen. But when we are talking about players below the elite level, who are not going to earn anywhere close to $100M (gross) in their careers, the likelihood of them giving up a million a year (or so) for the privilege of playing in Montreal is not super high. It could happen, sure, but would you really make your plan for building a contender team contingent on that happening?

But I don't think those are -- or should be -- the criteria for the keep/trade decision. I love Toffoli, I really do. And yet trading him makes sense, because he'll be 30 in the summer. Two years from now, when we maybe could possibly be starting to contend, he would already be 32, a UFA -- and looking for his final contract, likely with lots of dollars and lots of term. The kind we really should not sign if we're looking to be strong for a number of years. So, the only real alternative would have been to keep him for two years, and then trade him as a rental at the end of the contract. But trading him now significantly improves our cap flexibility as we go through our rebuild process.

There were also fewer D mistakes in front of Montembeault, giving him a better chance at making saves.

I really don't care. 😁

Brook really can't catch a break ...

Right. Samsonov makes more sense as a (future) #1, although there is still admittedly some risk (only 74 NHL games). So, for us to give up players (whom we might otherwise trade for futures) or futures, yes, the risk of Price going LTIR has to be high. In this scenario, we would definitely need to be trading Allen, so we'd have Samsonov and Montembeault as the two goalies. We would effectively get nothing for Price, though, bar freeing up cap space. He would be on LTIR for four years, the same as Weber, so there would be no incremental LTIR extension.

RDS said that the Habs had enquired about Ilya Samsonov. It's unclear whether that would have been before or after the Hammond acquisition. I can't see that Samsonov would come cheap.

So, I don't think it's a rush as such. It seems that Hughes' approach is to determine what he wants to get back in a deal, and then make the deal if someone meets that asking price. This is in contrast to waiting until the last moment before the deadline for the highest offer -- which might be great, or might not come at all.

For now, we have tied the longest winning streak of the season!

Maybe some day we'll find out what the issue was ...

20 years remaining.

I do think that Montembeault, with some improvement in the D corps, can be significantly better than, say, Niemi. He really should be able to handle 25-30 games. There will be some bad games but we get those from Price, too.

Don't want to retain salary on two players as that may constrain us later. Maybe we can retain 90% of Chiarot?

It seems that Hughes was quite keen specifically on Heineman. From the Athletic:

Lundkvist and Kravtsov, OK, but Nemeth? Is that just a salary dump? Kravtsov's value is probably roughly a second-round pick, maybe a late first. So, maybe Kravtsov plus the third for Chiarot. I don't know Lundkvist well enough to assess though. Is Lundkvist (RD is good but he's no sure thing) for Lehkonen enough? Especially given Nemeth in the package?

2011 I think they only had three picks in total, everything else traded away. 2012 they had a full set of picks but only Galchenyuk and Hudon even set foot in the NHL, none of the others even played a game. 2013 also had De La Rose, who played about three seasons (and McCarron played one). But, yeah, those were four grim draft years. But in 2011 only 21 of the 30 first-rounders played three years or more. A bad year overall, too.

Yes. But if you were the Calgary GM, would you really be willing to give up a first-rounder AND your top prospect in exchange for Toffoli? I don't think I would.

Farrell 1 shot and 20:23 TOI in 3-2 OT loss to the Slovaks. The Olympic semifinals are now a all-European affair.

I agree with your conclusion. And yet ... I'm cautiously optimistic that maybe they can do some good things. Am not confident that it will happen, but I'm thinking there is a reasonably good chance that it might.

By my count on Capfriendly, it's about $80M on 15 players. But maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing?

No. 7 prospect plus a first seems to be close enough to the top-5 prospect you were expecting.

That's actually more of a "willing" description. Lehkonen is capable making a contribution even after the rebuild and is still young, so we should be happy to keep him. But if another team is willing to pay more than he is worth to us, we should be willing to trade him. For "need" or "want" categories we would be willing to compromise what we accept in return; in "willing" we can wait for the right offer, or keep the player if no one is willing to pay the right amount.

They do have a couple of very attractive RHD prospects, thought they might not be willing to part with those.

The list I had was more of a "want to" list rather than "be able to" list. I believe that there is a greater need to trade Petry. However, as you say, he may be more difficult to move.

I'm largely with you on your list, Alfredo. I would swap Petry (big contract, will be well past his prime by the time the team is ready) and Armia (oversized contract but not massive, and can still help the team). Gallagher maybe in the top category? Not certain about the lesser D-men, don't know what Hughes wants to build there. I'd like to keep Edmundson and Romanov, and probably Clague. But then there are Savard, Wideman (likely gone as UFA if not traded, he's already 31), Niku, Kulak ... and possibly Brook and Norlinder. Can't pick the individual players without knowing the overall plan.