Best Young Talent Available for Trade

[WilliamWestcliffe]

...as speculated per the Athletic's Chris Johnston. Important to note, this list is also filtered by whom he projects as buyers at the trade deadline (heavy on Detroit and Montreal).

Tier1
Michael Brandsegg-Nygard | RW | Detroit
Nate Danielson | C | Detroit
Michael Hage | C | Montreal
Alexander Zharovsky | RW | Montreal

Tier2
Carter Bear | C/W | Detroit
Sebastian Cossa | G | Detroit
Conor Geekie | C | Tampa Bay
Eddie Genborg | LW | Detroit
David Reinbacher | RHD | Montreal
Charlie Stramel | C | Minnesota

Tier3
Trey Augustine | G | Detroit
Jacob Fowler | G | Montreal
Matt Savoie | C/W | Edmonton
Bradly Nadeau | RW | Carolina
Ike Howard | LW | Edmonton
Max Curran | C | Colorado

Tier4
Trevor Connelly | LW | Las Vegas
Adam Engstrom | LHD | Montreal
Max Plante | LW | Detroit
Emil Hemming | RW | Dallas
Ben Danford | RHD | Toronto
Sam O'Reilly | C | Tampa Bay
Benjamin Rautiainen | LW | Tampa Bay

[zoiks]

If the Blues trade Thomas, Detroit seems to me the only team with the type of prospects the Blues would want (Danielson as a Center prospect and main piece, plus they have other good prospects and own their 1st round draft pick for the upcoming draft). Hage is bad on faceoffs and has a high chance to end up a Wing, so I’m not interested in trading Thomas for him.

[Harry S Deals]

If the Blues trade Thomas, Detroit seems to me the only team with the type of prospects the Blues would want (Danielson as a Center prospect and main piece, plus they have other good prospects and own their 1st round draft pick for the upcoming draft). Hage is bad on faceoffs and has a high chance to end up a Wing, so I’m not interested in trading Thomas for him.

I would think Kasper, MBN AND Danielson for Thomas is a starting point right?

[Pierre McGuire]

If the Blues trade Thomas, Detroit seems to me the only team with the type of prospects the Blues would want (Danielson as a Center prospect and main piece, plus they have other good prospects and own their 1st round draft pick for the upcoming draft). Hage is bad on faceoffs and has a high chance to end up a Wing, so I’m not interested in trading Thomas for him.

Hage will be a center and likely a highly productive one. He drives the play. Faceoffs won’t be a problem for him 2 years into his pro career.
Danielson is good, but not sure he will as productive as Hage. He will be the better 200ft center though

[a smell of green grass]

One thing that I have learned about Army is that he "circles above" franchises with a lot of talent. This is what brought Faksa to us last year.

We have recently seen that Army values Detroit "spillover" (Berggren). I would therefore guess that Detroit is our highest probability trade partner.

[zoiks]

Hage will be a center and likely a highly productive one. He drives the play. Faceoffs won’t be a problem for him 2 years into his pro career.
Danielson is good, but not sure he will as productive as Hage. He will be the better 200ft center though

If that’s the case, then I’d include Montreal along with Detroit. Any other team trading for Thomas would need to include a young center off of its active NHL roster as part of the trade.

I think the rumored trade packages for Thomas I’ve seen so far greatly undervalue the return Thomas would bring. Top line centers at his age with his contract and no injury concerns never become available for a reason.

[a smell of green grass]

The long-term contracts for Thomas, Kyrou, and Buchnevich are a MINUS, not a PLUS.

Many teams will take a 1-2 year chance on a player let go (shopped) by another team. That is common. Few will sign up for a player with 5 more years and a no-trade clause on top of it all.

A team trading away a recent signee with 5-years remaining is very rare, and a team with 3 OF THEM at the same time is insane.

The contract that Army has them wrapped in (including Thomas) is what is lowering the deals.

[WilliamWestcliffe]

If Detroits ultimately the trade partner, the core of my ask is Danielson and Bear.

If Montreal, I'm asking for Hage and Reinbacher.

Both of those packages will need to add for Thomas, but either is a fantastic core package.

I'm then moving Kyrou for someone like Wright or a sizable defensive defenseman.

The depth for the next window would look very promising and then I think you can start looking at guys like Schenn, Faulk, Buchnevich, Bjugstad, Fabbri, Joseph, Sundqvist, Suter, Walker, etc. as chips to move to shore up your bottom six centers, defensive depth or for draft picks.

C
Danielson*/(Hage)
Dvorsky
Wright
Dean

W
Holloway
I.Stenberg*
Snuggerud
Carbonneau
Neighbors
Bear*
O.Stenberg
Pekaricik
Berggren
Torophchenko

LD
Broberg
Fowler
Lindstein
Ralph
Tucker

RD
Parayko
(Reinbacher)
Jiricek
Mailloux
Kessel

[DawgDad]

The long-term contracts for Thomas, Kyrou, and Buchnevich are a MINUS, not a PLUS.

Many teams will take a 1-2 year chance on a player let go (shopped) by another team. That is common. Few will sign up for a player with 5 more years and a no-trade clause on top of it all.

A team trading away a recent signee with 5-years remaining is very rare, and a team with 3 OF THEM at the same time is insane.

The contract that Army has them wrapped in (including Thomas) is what is lowering the deals.

Maybe it's insurance against the temptation to do something stupid?

[zoiks]

Maybe it's insurance against the temptation to do something stupid?

Please don’t feed the troll. Add him to your Foe (block) list and consider the troll to not exist.

[LGB73]

Could you land one of those tier 1 C's without trading Thomas? I'm not always enamored with Thomas's play or his looks to the rafters, but I like this team better if we're adding to our center depth. Thomas-Dvo-Danielson or Hage wouldn't be a bad trio of centers all 26 and younger.

More generally than specific to this trade scenario but I'm hoping Army is planning on retaining on guys like Faulk/Schenn to improve the return. We don't need to be spending to the cap for the remainder of their contracts. We should be icing a younger( thus cheaper) team next season and the year after. Leverage that cap space in the short term to get better assets in the pipeline for down the road.

[noted]

...as speculated per the Athletic's Chris Johnston. Important to note, this list is also filtered by whom he projects as buyers at the trade deadline (heavy on Detroit and Montreal).

Tier1
Michael Brandsegg-Nygard | RW | Detroit
Nate Danielson | C | Detroit
Michael Hage | C | Montreal
Alexander Zharovsky | RW | Montreal

Tier2
Carter Bear | C/W | Detroit
Sebastian Cossa | G | Detroit
Conor Geekie | C | Tampa Bay
Eddie Genborg | LW | Detroit
David Reinbacher | RHD | Montreal
Charlie Stramel | C | Minnesota

Tier3
Trey Augustine | G | Detroit
Jacob Fowler | G | Montreal
Matt Savoie | C/W | Edmonton
Bradly Nadeau | RW | Carolina
Ike Howard | LW | Edmonton
Max Curran | C | Colorado

Tier4
Trevor Connelly | LW | Las Vegas
Adam Engstrom | LHD | Montreal
Max Plante | LW | Detroit
Emil Hemming | RW | Dallas
Ben Danford | RHD | Toronto
Sam O'Reilly | C | Tampa Bay
Benjamin Rautiainen | LW | Tampa Bay

Chris Johnston didn’t write this just fyi - was Corey Pronmam

[MandatoryDenial]

If the Blues trade Thomas, Detroit seems to me the only team with the type of prospects the Blues would want (Danielson as a Center prospect and main piece, plus they have other good prospects and own their 1st round draft pick for the upcoming draft). Hage is bad on faceoffs and has a high chance to end up a Wing, so I’m not interested in trading Thomas for him.

I would think Kasper, MBN AND Danielson for Thomas is a starting point right?

If we aee wish listing the Red Wings, Axel Sandin-Pelikka might be a good guy to target.

[PregnantNun]

...as speculated per the Athletic's Chris Johnston. Important to note, this list is also filtered by whom he projects as buyers at the trade deadline (heavy on Detroit and Montreal).

Tier1
Michael Brandsegg-Nygard | RW | Detroit
Nate Danielson | C | Detroit
Michael Hage | C | Montreal
Alexander Zharovsky | RW | Montreal

Tier2
Carter Bear | C/W | Detroit
Sebastian Cossa | G | Detroit
Conor Geekie | C | Tampa Bay
Eddie Genborg | LW | Detroit
David Reinbacher | RHD | Montreal
Charlie Stramel | C | Minnesota

Tier3
Trey Augustine | G | Detroit
Jacob Fowler | G | Montreal
Matt Savoie | C/W | Edmonton
Bradly Nadeau | RW | Carolina
Ike Howard | LW | Edmonton
Max Curran | C | Colorado

Tier4
Trevor Connelly | LW | Las Vegas
Adam Engstrom | LHD | Montreal
Max Plante | LW | Detroit
Emil Hemming | RW | Dallas
Ben Danford | RHD | Toronto
Sam O'Reilly | C | Tampa Bay
Benjamin Rautiainen | LW | Tampa Bay

If the Wings trade Cossa after all this time developing him while putting up with guys like Husso, Lyon, and Talbot in goal they are major idiots. Augustine maybe. He's still a few years away at least.

[zamadoo]

Could you land one of those tier 1 C's without trading Thomas? I'm not always enamored with Thomas's play or his looks to the rafters, but I like this team better if we're adding to our center depth. Thomas-Dvo-Danielson or Hage wouldn't be a bad trio of centers all 26 and younger.

More generally than specific to this trade scenario but I'm hoping Army is planning on retaining on guys like Faulk/Schenn to improve the return. We don't need to be spending to the cap for the remainder of their contracts. We should be icing a younger( thus cheaper) team next season and the year after. Leverage that cap space in the short term to get better assets in the pipeline for down the road.

I like what you're thinking. Cap space is not an issue going forward. We shouldn't trade vets just do dump cap, but retaining on Faulk could increase his return significantly.

While I might be done with MTL for a while, I'd love to get Hage. Not so sure on Reinbacher anymore. Why is he not in their lineup? He would be a nice throw in piece I suppose, but he's not the target at this point.

Detroit is very intriguing. Who accepts a trade there? Faulk likely does, and has a smaller NT list. Probably not getting anything huge for him, but maybe something nice (especially with retention). Thomas and Kyrou are harder to move, but surely by now they're looking to move on to better environments for them?

The question is, can Kyrou bring back a top tier player? (maybe)

Furthermore, by moving all three of Thomas, Kyrou, and Faulk, do the Blues return enough to make it worth it? (I say probably yes)

[TheHighHat]

If the Blues trade Thomas, Detroit seems to me the only team with the type of prospects the Blues would want (Danielson as a Center prospect and main piece, plus they have other good prospects and own their 1st round draft pick for the upcoming draft). Hage is bad on faceoffs and has a high chance to end up a Wing, so I’m not interested in trading Thomas for him.

I would think Kasper, MBN AND Danielson for Thomas is a starting point right?

If we aee wish listing the Red Wings, Axel Sandin-Pelikka might be a good guy to target.

Sandin-Pellikka is untouchable.
Seider, Edvinsson, and ASP are the Wings triumvirate for the next decade.

Detroit would probably like to shelter ASP (21 year old rookie) in the playoffs this year hence the talk of acquiring a RHD.
Hamonic and Bernard-Docker are #7 types at best.

Starting next season and beyond the Wings need to find a 2nd pair LHD.
Ideally Chiarot should be slotted on the bottom pair.

The Wings need that 2C to get some secondary scoring going.
Acquiring a legit center would allow them to move Copp to LW with Larkin and Raymond.
They really need a big winger too.
I know Cat and Kane have chemistry but they are too small to play together all of the time in the playoffs.

Marco Kasper is the only roster player with trade value they're probably willing to trade.
Perhaps I'm wrong but I just don't see the Wings having the forward depth & top 9 size to make a run in the playoffs this year.

The other team that needs both a 2C and a RHD is the Canes.
They're more advanced than Detroit thus more likely to make bigger moves even though they don't have as many young assets to trade.
I look for them to go after Kadri and Faulk.

I don't think Thomas is traded this deadline.