I'd rather just upgrade our D than upgrade it while weakening our forwards.
especially since our forward depth is not as crazy as we think. a trade means Brown back in the top 9 with only grundstrom to hope on as a top-9 prospect. our 4th line kinda sucks right now and there's nobody banging on the door in the minors.
Brown has looked fine when moved up the lineup.
And 4th line players are easier to replace.
Trading our 2 best D prospects to fill the same need at the NHL level is kind of silly.
Liljegren will make the team next year.
And Sandin might very well as well.
If not the year after.
Rosen was signed as an insurance policy but I he doesn't have the ceiling of the other two.
It seems Dubas is at a bit of a crossroads here.
Our prospect depth is not very good, our picks will be late and thus not having huge value.
We need to maximize our window here and stay within the cap.
Trading players like Liljegren is a bad idea IMO, more so than Sandin.
We are going to lose Hainsey and Gardiner (presumably), we need players to fill those spots. Zaitsev and Ozighanov aren't really beacons of hope on the right side.
If anything I could see Dubas doing absolutely nothing until the draft, then seeing where we stand there in regards to cap and signing our RFAs.
If we don't get it done in the playoffs, then the pieces will start to be moved around.
One thing is for sure, we cannot go into next year with Zaitsev as our #1 RHD. Presuming Hainsey isn't back, which isn't any better, really.
I am very interested as to what Dubas is going to do here, and I think he was really trying to get a deal done with Nylander, but when he couldn't, he is going to ride it out until the draft, imo.