u/SpectreFire

Obviously the centre that trade talks are focused on right now is Pettersson, but Marco Rossi is still on this team and is in kind of a weird spot given his age and the direction the team is going.

He's not exactly old, but he'll 25 by the time the season starts and has 2 years left at an extremely affordable cap hit for a 2C that was on pace for 57 points last season.

Really, his next two cost controlled seasons would likely be far more valuable to a playoff team that's looking for a 2C (and there are a lot of those around) than to a rebuilding team that doesn't care about cap and wins.

On paper, Rossi is guaranteed 1st+ given his position and positive contract. On top of that, he has no trade protection, so we can move him to any team in the league.

Detroit is the most obvious destination as they'll be out their 1C probably pretty soon. Rossi also fits the timeline of Seider and Raymond perfectly and presumably they should have a bounty of assets available once Larkin's dealt.

LA is the next obvious choice given Kopitar's retirement has made their center depth extremely dire. They've got Byfield, and Mike Richard's buyout penalty. That's it.

Montreal is also another obvious case. They desperately need another center to play behind Suzuki as they had to resort to Jake fucking Evans as their 2C during the playoffs. Size is the biggest concern I'd have with Rossi for them as they're already a small team and adding another small player might not be ideal.

Pittsburgh's kind of a wildcard. They've got Crosby and Malkin for another year, and with Malkin basically now permanently a winger, they're going to need a 2C to try for another run at the playoffs. They're extremely asset rich in terms of futures as they have all their 1sts, plus 11 2nds and 6 3rds across the next 4 drafts.

With all that said, is Rossi a guy we keep around until the rebuild's complete, or do we move him now where the value for him is probably at an all-time high.

Edmonton needs to add more cost effective fowards and market-value wise, Debrusk is on a decent cap hit for a consistent 20+ goal scorer who's known to be a big playoff performer.

He's also from Edmonton, and satisfies his wife's requirement to stay in the west for her medical career, making him more likely to waive for them.

I think you can make a case for their 2028 1st, maybe throw in a Lankinen/Jarry swap to bolster the offer if they can be convinced Lankinen is a better option now than Jarry is for a slightly smaller cap hit.

In 2022, the Habs got a 2025 1st from Calgary in exchange for taking on Sean Monahan's contract.

2 years later, they flipped Monahan to the Jets for a 2024 1st.

This is THE model of how a rebuilding team should be aggressively pursuing draft picks.

The Habs literally created two 1st round picks out of thin air.

The cap situation today obviously isn't the same, but there are absolutely still opportunities out there especially for cup contending teams.

The biggest target in my mind is the Oilers. That's a team RIFE with horrible contracts like Fredic, Nurse, Ekholm, and Jarry. If I'm RJ, I'm on the phone IMMEDIATELY with Stan Bowman offering an out.

Trades I'd seriously look at with the Oilers

Lankinen for Jarry + 2026 2nd.

Oilers desperately need a goalie and Jarry is dogshit. Lankinen isn't exactly a world beater, but he's better than Jarry, isn't a problem in the lockerroom, and saves them 900k in cap.

MPetey for Ekholm + 2028 1st.

Ekholm is probably cooked. He's too old and too slow to keep up on a contending team. He's about to start a brand new 3 year contract at 4m per with a full NMC. He has no protection on his current contract and the Oilers can move him to wherever. MPetey had a pretty bad year, but given the circumstances, I'm confident he'd bounce back under a coach not named Foote. He's an easy replacement for Ekholm in the top-4 at a very marginal cap increase.