SJ has traded a LOT of futures. In the next three years, they could have only one 2nd round pick and one 3rd round pick in the first three rounds. Karlsson, Nyquist, Pavelski and Thornton are all UFAs. Their window is slamming shut.
TBL has a huge cap crunch coming up. Point is RFA this year. Gourde's extension kicks in next year and he costs $4M more. Vasilevskiy and Sergachev are up for new deals at the end of next season. Four of their top 7 D are UFAs. They'll still be a great team for a long time but not this dominant.
Conversely almost all of the Flames' core is under 25 and cost-controlled. We have no 2nd this year but have most of our top picks in the next three years. We have great young D. The only risk is Gio will eventually start to look his age, but there's no signs of that yet.
This was not the year to sell the farm.
Last edited by Five-hole; 02-25-2019 at 03:07 PM.
|