How is this still open?
Horvat is the better player, plays center, has the captaincy, is younger, is a better playoff performer, and is somehow on a lower cap hit.
Vancouver has tons of wingers, with 5 top six wingers and Podkolzin on the roster already. If we have Horvat moved, we have no back up for centers when an injury inevitably hits us. Adding Garland and Podkolzin to an already well rounded top six means Gallagher is not a need, or even a want for us.
Vancouver's cap situation is tenuous at best, and we don't have room for the added cost for Gallagher and what ever trinkets are being thrown in to "even the value".
Poeling is not a "replacement" 3rd line center for us, he has played 28 games across 2 seasons. Because he scored a hat trick in his first game doesn't mean he's ready to take a key role on a team the OP has clearly never looked at, even on paper. Especially when we just traded for Dickinson for that exact role.
Montreal has nothing of any interest to Vancouver for Horvat. Petry is too old to be of interest, their forwards are all downgrades or prospects hoping that they improve to what Horvat is doing for us (Suzuki at least nearly matches Horvat's scoring, I will concede), and we're not in the market for futures. Benning's butt is on the line, and we're all in after trading both our last first round picks for immediate roster help. This help are one of the reason Gallagher does nothing for us: Miller and Garland. Any plus you can think of for Gallagher are already covered by the two, but with the incredible benefit of not costing us Horvat, who already has all of Gallagher's assets covered.
Other teams don't exist to farm talent for Montreal.
Vancouver doesn't have any reason to trade Horvat. Zero.
Montreal has nothing of interest to trade for Horvat, as far as Vancouver is concerned.
Vancouver wants to quantify what it has after a busy offseason before making awful trades.
I would also argue that, internally, Horvat is probably our most valuable player.
So can this be closed?
