I would trade Fox, part ways with Kakko let the other UFAs walk and go after Reinhart or Guentzel. I'm fine trading Trouba for an equally proficient physical dman and I think Jones showed some improvement. With the number of young prospects in the system making low salaries this should be the year Drury goes for it. Worst case you have Trouba 2 more years, Mika however...
Before this playoffs where he was hurt, as I pointed out once, Fox had 31 points in 31 G. You're kidding yourself you think the PP will be good without him. It's not that easy to find a good pp point man. Forget about elite like Fox is. Problem is several things on defense. One, Miller plays like Poti to often and not like he's 6'5. Two, Lindgren, God love him, all heart but he's not that big either. Trouba has the size but he's incredibly dumb half the time. Schneider is my favorite to be a shutdown guy long term. Right now the system is now weak with lefty defenseman. If they trade Kakko and it's not for a center, I would think they would move him for a big, fairly young, physical lefty defenseman who they could put with Fox. Move Lindgren with Schneider. Move Miller with Trouba but make it the third pairing unless you buyout Trouba. Or keep Schneider with Miller and put Lindgren with Trouba. Either way, the Fox-Lindgren pair has to end. 5'11 and 6'0 isn't going to cut it against teams like Florida.
I agree with your last point big time Panzer. Young prospects in the system, cap going up $4.5M from $83.5M to $88M this summer, and Igor's final season before he gets a huge raise. That all equals Drury making a big push this summer to get this team over the hump. I would prefer Guentzel over Reinhart as I think Reinhart is very PP dependent, we have enough of those guys. I think Kakko comes down to value. If you can get good value for him alone or in a package I make a move, if you cannot I would keep him at a low risk $2.5M +/- rather than moving him for pennies on the dollar. From a cap perspective the D will be an interesting watch. If you keep all of them, it is tough having Trouba at $8M on the 3rd pair. I guess you could make it work if Jones is ready to be the 3rd pair LD, but the D be too small with him and Fox. I think you need to add a big physical regular rotation dman, preferably to pair with Fox and slide Lindgren down with Schneider, or to the 3rd pair and keep Miller with Schneider, I think that makes sense. And to your point, in 2 summers from now Trouba and East West are UFA's, that is a lot of money coming off in 2026, $19.6M, if you don't move them before then. No way you buy Trouba out when you can trade him instead and not incur two extra years of $2M in dead cap space. His NTC is only 15 teams, so Drury can get it done. Even if you eat $3M or $4M to make a trade, you still save money now and avoid the two dead money penalty years.
