Jets and Knights are winners for me.
Leafs and Oilers are losers for me.
Not sure what to think about Sharks and the Hertl trade. Could they have done better if they waited until the summer? Can Edstrom be more than the 3C Button projects him to be? The 2025 first will be how late in the round? They gave up two thirds, which will be early in the rounds, to move the contract. I get moving him. He's 30. Just wondering if Grier might have flinched.
Yeah this trade felt a bit like a desperation move to get out of that contract. How's Hertl's injury and hiw is he recuperating? Do the Sharks know something that the rest of the league don't?
I was pretty critical of the Sharks in the moment, but have sinced cooled down and I think it might have been one of those "rip the bandaid" moments thay we often criticize GMs for not doing, or doing too late. Imagine Hertl comes back from injury and puts up 40 pts next year on a terrible Sharks team. A year older, looking worse than ever, whats his value gonna be like?
On the other hand, I look back at a similar past Vegas trade like the Pacioretty for Suzuki one, and think these short term deals are ever so slowly catching up to them. Theyre not a straight up disaster, but imagine them having Suzuki on the roster right now? No need to trade for Hertl, so they keep that 1st and prospect (or maybe use them to load up somewhere else?). And Suzuki is potentially better than Hertl is now, and for the next decade.
Long winded answer to say... depending how the prospect and 1st fare, we might look at the Hertl trade very differently in 5 years.
The tatar trades were absolutely ridiculous for Vegas and really illustrate how much artillery Vegas had to work with out of the gate.
Props to them, they nailed the expansion draft though. The best value they got was actually from side deals, and not due to the rules
Had GMs simply played the rules, Vegas would have missed out on quite a bit.