Could be. He almost HAS to be traded though. With Kyrou signed, they have about $3.5M left in cap space left with Thomas and Sanford left to be signed. Sure you could trade one of those RFAs and free a bit of space sending Santini or Walman down, but it's still tight. Armstrong also has a way of making depth signings late in the summer, so I'm sure he'd like some breathing room. I imagine the way he achieves that is sending Tarasenko out of town and retaining as little of his cap hit as possible.Turk Sanderson wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:44 amIf he's traded at all, I expect that it will be something that no-one is predicting or anticipating. I think it would be more of a several player swap with a sleeper team.Dave's a mess wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:01 am Quiet on the Tarasenko front. I don't expect to hear much until things are imminent. All the insiders have gone on vacation for the summer and the teams that are supposedly left in the running are generally pretty quiet about stuff to begin with. The three teams are:
Islanders- Lots of smoke to this one. Friedman said that he'd heard the Islanders have re-signed a bunch of guys but hasn't announced the deals yet because he doesn't want other teams to know how much cap space he has left for trade talks. He'd mentioned Tarasenko to the Isles as a possibility, so holding off on those announcements is a way to maintain leverage in talks with Armstrong about retaining some % of Tarasenko's salary. If you start seeing Palmierei, Pelech and possibly Beauvillier (who may or may not be part of the trade) agree to terms, it might mean a Tarasenko deal is imminent, has happened already, or the Isles are out.
Canes- Super analytically driven and loaded with cap space. Tarasenko has had great fancy stats whenever he's healthy, so if they trust his shoulder they make a lot of sense. No idea what the return would be here.
Devils- This one has been rumored but makes the least amount of sense to me. Sure they added Hamilton and their kids are improving, but does their winning timeline matchup with Tarasenko's contract? The other two teams are much closer to winning and you could see how a healthy Tarasenko could help put them over the top. I'm not so sure about the Devils.
So I don't know. Most talk has been about the Islanders, but who knows. All 3 have a fair amount of picks and lots of cap space. Question is how many teams view Tarasenko as an asset you actually pay for. Trades have been all over the place this year. The Hawks alone have given up tons of future assets for Seth Jones, who has been bad to terrible the last couple of years, but also got the reigning Vezina trophy winner basically for free. I just want this thing to end because waiting on big moves is boring.
Re: Blues Offseason Roster Moves/Speculation Thread
351...but whatever, the Blues won the Cup!!!!!