They at least got value from dumping Kuzmenko. Whether he has bounced back on Calgary is irrelevant. Had he stayed on Vancouver, he wasn't going to have the same turn around. Then it may have cost them a 1st round pick to dump him in the offseason.
So while the trade is still a close to complete failure, they at least walk away with cap space.
How is the trade a complete failure when the entire reason he was brought here was with the playoffs in mind.
I mean not that it matters but he was yo-yoed around the top 9 during a 7 game road trip where there was no practice time. He had 1 really bad game and was clearly injured. and true he wasn't scoring but he still made us better defensively and on the pk.
After he returned and found his wingers he had 6 points in 7 games, was 60+% on FO .
He was easily the 2nd best forward last night and since he was literally aquired for a hopefully long playoff run how in Gods name can this trade be considered a failure?
Regular season points on a team going nowhere while getting pp1 time and playing with two of the flames most offensive players, was a completely different scenario than Lindholm who is being used as a shutdown centre with little pp time and tons of defensive zone draws.
I hope if he continues to play this well and he enjoys being here and realizes that he's likely not gonna get 7.5-8 million from a contender on July 1st and takes a fair deal I'd love to have him back along with Dakota and keep that line together.