[powderjunkie]

Posted this a week or two ago, but it's still very relevant:

Gio's on the road nearly half the time during the season, so I doubt they'd relocate the family if he ended up in SEA. They can come visit him for a few home stretches, he can come home for Xmas and ASB, plus 2+ games in CGY.


No guarantee SEA takes Gio even if he's exposed. The impression is that they want to draft the min. possible salary and then extort more value in trades.

They need to draft 48.9M in AAV. Assuming 20 guys average around 1M, that means they need to draft a surplus of ~$29M.

Possibilities
Goalies (Quick, Allen, Holtby, Khudobin, etc.)

Voracek/JVR...

TBL: McDonagh/Cernak, or I wouldn't be surprised if they offered a Gourde+T Johnson package

COL: need to do something about their 4 D...you can probably pencil $4M+ from them (maybe they go 4-4 and expose Kadri or Donskoi)

MIN: Dumba/Hartman/Rask/Talbot - probably some $$$ one way or the other

MTL: Chiarot/Edmundson...maybe even Byron (or Jake Allen)

NAS: They might go 4-4 and maybe even expose a Duchene or Johansen. (Kunin, Arvidsson, Forsberg...)

PIT: McCann/Rust/Matheson

Other $$$$ D:
Risto/C Miller
Gio
Skjei/Gardiner or Bean (pending RFA...maybe CAR gets creative to try to keep him)
Zadorov/De Haan, though ELC Riley Stillman may be attractive


I suppose my point is that SEA won't have much trouble drafting that surplus $29M, especially with defensemen (lots of LD at that). It's hard to play out the scenario without knowing the actual protection lists, or knowing how coveted certain prospects might be on these teams that have established $$$ players.