[SeanCharles]

This has quickly become a Brodie debate thread..

I actually think the whole topic goes deeper than that and is something that needs to be addressed, sooner or later.

The fact of the matter is come next season we will have 4 young dmen that are good enough and would benefit from playing regular NHL minutes. We also have Gio, Brodie, Hamonic and Stone under contract with Prout and Fantenburg as guys who could be retained as depth.

That leaves you with 7 guys who should be playing regular minutes and an 8th in Stone already signed. As such, unless we want to keep Valimaki in the minors until injuries strike I don't know how else to solve the logjam other than trading one of those 7 guys.

We need another top 6 forward, specifically a RWer, as evidenced by Treliving's heavy pursuit of Stone. Wouldn't it make sense from an asset management standpoint to trade one of those 7 dmen to address this area of weakness?

Using our depth on defense would be wise to use as trade bait considering our depth and the fact a few guys will need to be re-signed by the end of next season. You dont want risk losing Brodie or Hamonic for nothing and by the time they are up holding Valimaki back will probably no longer be an option.

So now the debate switches to who should we use as tradebait?

For a number of obvious reasons I feel like the choice is between Brodie, Hamonic or Kylington. Valimaki and Andersson are players Treliving has voiced he has no interest in trading while Gio and Hanifin are locked up for years.

Now who do we want to trade, a young and promising player in Kylington, a unique player in our system due to size, grit, RHedness and defensive acumen rolled into one in Hamonic or our top pairing dman who has had ups and downs in his time here and is currently at a peak in his performance?

It's not an easy choice but Brodie has alot of similar traits to Hanifin and Kylington so I think that gives him the edge over Hamonic even if Hamonic is technically the 2nd pair guy. I would prefer to go with the young developing guy, in Kylington, over him as well.

I think Brodie is a big part of the team but also think Gio, Hanifin and Hamonic are more imperative to our longterm success. The other 3 are young and developing so they are also very important for our future.

Even if Brodie plays the right side I dont see it being a huge problem to forsee one of Hanifin or Kylington being able to switch sides also.

Trading Brodie is smart asset management because it allows us to get a return on Brodie before his contract expires, makes sure the youngsters can get icetime to develop and affords Treliving the opportunity to use him as a chip to upgrade in other areas.