This trade would effectively end the Hughes era competitive window. It's a shockingly bad return. An established 1C potential franchise cornerstone for scraps and a pick.
And then who is trading top 6 centerman? Not many teams thats why MIller and Petey might get more than you think. Certainly Petey shouldn't be sold for anything less than a kings ransom.
Ok, that's fair, I am probably overrating the 1st, even if it ends up 5-10 overall. Though, my suggestion was that VAN would use that pick and/or their own 1st for a follow-up cap-leveraging trade to get the C they need, and/or a D upgrade. Perhaps a fair deal would be DET adding Danielson or Kaspar? Again, not to develop them, but flip them.
Another idea: EP has no trade protection, so this would be an amazing potential opportunity for WPG to acquire a top prime-aged C who is locked down. So, like the DET deal, maybe something like this:
EP to WPG for Iafallo, Perfetti, Yager, 2025 1st
WPG of course adds because their 1st is much less valuable than DET's. Plus, VAN can keep the NHL-ready Perfetti (probably as a winger).
For both of these trades, here are some suggestions of what VAN's follow-up could look like:
To CBJ: Kaspar + W. Wallinder + DET 1st
To VAN: Provorov + Sillinger + MIN 1st
To PHI: Yager + VAN 1st
To VAN: Frost + Ristolainen + CBJ 2nd ('25)
To SJS: VAN 1st + Desharnais (keeping Kaspar/Danielson/Yager)
To VAN: Granlund
To NYI: Kaspar/Danielson/Yager
To VAN: Romanov +2nd (as a follow up to the SJS deal?)
And many more possible options like 1 or more of these. Hopefully something like that would be possible...