There's a few different ways to look at this:
For the coming season, Gaudreau + Tkachuk is close to Huberdeau + Weegar. Huberdeau + Weegar is certainly better than just Tkachuk. Overall we took a step back up front but improved our defence. On paper we're about as good as we were last season, just differently balanced. Cancel the fire sale!
However, Huberdeau + Weegar are on cheaper contracts, so we no longer need a cap dump. That's a win!
I don't think there's much point looking at them as rentals, because we're not likely to be deadline sellers, but I think H+W have more rental value than T as well.
The first and Schwindt are just gravy!
Here's the one rub I see though: prior to Tkachuk's trade request, I was looking at 2023 thinking that if we could get two of Tkachuk/Huberdeau/McKinnon, we'd bounce back into cup contention after this season's cap crunch. Well Tkachuk is off the table, and getting 2 out of 2 is tougher than 2 out of 3. How are we going to get value from our cap space? Well, maybe Weegar is the answer and I shouldn't have overlooked him. Or maybe we combine our cap space with some other assets and make a trade. Luckily, we just picked up some non-roster assets that could be used for that.
Great trade.
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