How is Montreal not better? Those three listed are all upgrades.
As for Toronto, it's only money and they are unquestionably better with their additions and you figure all those young kids will be better in year two like we are expecting ours to be.
Long term Drouin is absolutely an upgrade on Radulov, but in the short term it's debatable however much Radulov is vilified he's a heck of a talent. And at the cost of Sergachev? Lateral move at best.
Alzner is not an upgrade on Markov, no way. Younger, yes, but we're talking about a guy who was WSHs 4/5 D-man here. All he's got on Markov is age. And is Shlemko better than Emelin? Not a fan of the latter, but I'd beg to differ anyway.
Based on roles, I'd put Alzner down as a slight upgrade on Emelin as a defensive D, and Schemko as a major downgrade on Markov as a puck mover/2-way D.
These moves by Bergevin smell of desperation and an urge to "do something". I don't think they got better at all. Younger (discounting the loss of Sergachev) and closer to the cap, but not better. What they still badly need is proper C depth, especially with Claude behind the bench, but they still have the turtleneck as arguably their best centerman. I guess Drouin might line up at C to start the season, but he doesn't exactly fit the Julien mold, does he? Bergevin will have to do something creative around Galchenyuk if they don't trust him, but I don't think he'll be able to with the cap as is.
Regarding TOR, I have no idea how anyone can think Hainsey and Marleau can be worth a combined 9+ mil per at this stage of their careers. And at multiple years too. Was there really that much interest in those two that the prices got pushed up that far? In my opinion easily the two worst FA contracts so far this summer.
