Originally Posted by devo22
Think Vancouver did extremely well. Feels like Allvin did a good job of finding the sweet spot to actually pull the trigger ... sure, a S&T in the summer could have potentially landed a huge return too, but if Hughes then says "NJ or bust", all your leverage goes out the door. So kudos to the Canucks there, I think they were able to maximize the return and that's all you can hope for when you trade a franchise player.
Landing Buium as a key piece is huge. I do wonder why such a talent falls to 12 in the draft and then gets dealt midway through his rookie season, but on the other hand, you're not landing Hughes without paying a premium. Really nice cornerstone player on the blueline for them, him and Willander could turn into a nice pairing for them. Rossi also fills a huge need down the middle, even though it breaks my heart to see him in that jersey. His fate in Minnesota was sealed once he signed that contract, it was always going to be a decent trading chip and so here we are. Huge opportunity for him as 2C, but you do have to wonder about size and physicality when you run Pettersson-Rossi as your 1-2. We'll see how that works. Ohgren might benefit from a change of scenery ... he was down to 9 minutes a night in Minnesota, he wasn't going to succeed there. Still only 21, you never know. Decent gamble. The 1st will probably be 25th or later, but they desperately need an injection to their prospect pool ... Cootes, Willander, Lekkerimaki and Pettersson 2.0 are decent, but that's about it. They have basically nothing left from 3 of their last 6 drafts.
Huge risk for Minnesota, obviously ... but at some point, you have to shoot your shot and push the chips in. I get it. You have good goaltending, and offense run by Kaprizov and Boldy, and having Hughes-Faber as your top pairing is sexy af. If they can re-sign Hughes, then hats off. If not, they simply have to be smart in terms of asset management ... simply can't let him walk for nothing after giving up that package.
Bottom line, huge trades are fun! Let's have more of those, NHL GMs, pretty please.
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