I would gladly trade DeAngelo for him and a second rounder if they retain half his salary. Ducks suck and have no talent. Henrique is winning about 57% of his draws this season. If I could get him for 3 years at 2.9, it' s a win. I always liked his game.
Not a bad option, if the Ducks eat 50%. If they will not, no way can you bring Henrique here at 5.8 per for 3 more years. My own opinion is go all in on Eichel this summer. Put everything on the table outside of Kakko, Lafreniere, and Miller. Every other prospect is available IMO. Of course we wouldn't have to trade all of them - let's say 3 good prospects (you'd think Kravtsov would have to be 1, maybe Lundkvist another, ? who the 3rd would be), a current NHL player (maybe Buch), and a couple of picks. I'd have to do that for Eichel. He would be the last piece to the puzzle I think.
Panarin/Eichel/Kakko Lafreniere/Ziban/Kreider Miller/Trouba Lindgren/Fox That is a heck of a top 6 upfront and top 4 on D. Add in at least one of Robertson or Schneider on D (maybe you have to include one in the Eichel deal). That's an awesome base. And we have good bottom 6 depth elsewhere in the system, and the same with finding a 6th dman if you only have one of Robertson/Schneider. That's where I would put all my focus, and I think it can/will happen. If the Sabres miss the playoffs again, very likely, and Hall leaves, likely, I cannot see Eichel wanting to stay there anymore.
From a cap POV, not sure people realize how much money we have coming off. Just under 9 mill of dead buyout space opens up from Hank going down 4 mill and Shatt's balloon payment year done. 4.350 comes off with Smith's expiring deal. 1.150 comes off with Johnson's expiring deal. And right now I will say most likely DeAngelo is bought out (if Seattle doesn't select him), and that would give us an additional 4.4 mill off the cap. That's just under 19 mill off the cap next year. We will need to give raises to some RFA's, but nothing crazy. So we'll have plenty of money available this summer, which is why I think Gorton/JD have been pointing to next year as our first year ready to really go win again. We should have a complete team, and be past a year with 13 mill of dead cap space (which is a crazy amount). Also, with how Ziban has played, his odds of getting 10 mill per on his new deal after next season, are going down. Maybe he is a 7 or 8 mill per guy on an extension. That's an extra 2-3 mill to play with and pay Eichel. I think we get it done unless Buffalo finishes big and Eichel then would want to stay up there.
