No thank you to Cody Ceci, he is very bad, I don't even know if he's better than Matt Benning
I'd take him+Edm's 2026 2nd for Benning. Bet you could move him for a 3rd or 4th at the deadline.
Would give Edmonton $2M more that they could use for a deadline pickup (top 4 pickup, goalie upgrade)
Good golly that Nurse contract is something else.
Draisaitl (13) and Bouchard (8?) up next year. McDavid (15), Ekholm (8?), and both goalies, the year after. Add Nurse and you're at $53M for 5 players. Nuge and Hyman at $5M each are good contracts though. Aside from Nurse that'll be 6 really good players at market rate. That said, the first couple years of major star contracts can be tricky, but with a rising cap years 3+ start looking better.
Definitely feels like this is the year for Edmonton. Dallas (Pavs/Tanev), Vancouver (Zadorov/Lindholm), Vegas (Marchessault/Stephenson/Mantha), Colorado (Nuke/Walker) have all gotten worse. Eastern rivals have also gotten marginally worse Florida (Montour/OEL/Stenlund/Taransenko), NYR (Wennberg/Roslovic/Goody), Carolina (Guentzel/Pesce/Teuvo). Boston's better I think (Lindholm/Zadorov; Debrusk/Ulmark out). New Jersey certainly is (youth+Markstrom).
Meanwhile Edmonton added Skinner, Arvidsson while retaining Henrique, Janmark, and Perry, losing Foegele and Campbell (addition by subtraction).