Even if you didn't like him, I wouldn't have traded him ahead of the ED. I don't like protecting Benn over Beaulieu just because I don't see why Vegas takes Benn when there are so many better d men and assets available. But either way, leave Beaulieu exposed, let him go for free and then at least you still have Hudon.
This way you lose Beaulieu and Hudon (likely) and all you get back is a 3rd. Doesn't make sense.
You also paint yourself into a corner on the trade market, where teams know you need 1-2 NHL d men, preferably on the younger side who can play right now (see: Beaulieu). They are in a position of weakness now.
Hope I'm proven wrong, but I really hate the way this was handled. Terrible player dev, terrible asset management, terrible ED strategy.
We are so clueless about the management.
Let's see: they traded Andrighetto because he was behind Lehkonen in the top-6 and they wanted to keep Byron and Shaw.
Seems simple to me.
Ghetto is not a third liner. Either he is top-6 or he is not playing.
There you go: Martinssen for Andrighetto.
At least Martinssen brings you something you need.
They may have offered Emelin, Beaulieu and Benn on the trade market and the only thing they were offered was a 3rd for Beaulieu.
Everybody was trying to protect their d-men (NYI even protected 5 of them) so there was no interest.
This is not a proof but it is a perfectly possible.
If they were offered a 2nd or a 3rd for Emelin of Benn they may have kept Beaulieu.
But if nobody wanted an extra d-men because they already needed to protest their own all of this makes perfect sense.
So if your choice is between loosing either Emelin or Benn for nothing or getting a 3rd pick what do you do?
Emelin will most likely not be picked at 4.1M for 10 points.