Now that the boards are now (sort of) functioning again, I will offer my take.
There's a lot of subtleties to this trade and a lot of people are polarized over what each asset even is. I think Hanifin could within reason reach Hamilton's level. Jones, Hedman, and even Hamilton himself took a similar track points wise in their first few years (though Hanifin has arguably been sheltered). Hamilton is what we hoped Hanifin would become plus he can replace Faulk's shot on the PP. Not like Hamilton is some grizzled veteran either. He's 25 and has plenty of potential left himself. Aside from talk of Hamilton being either a locker room cancer or just a little bit odd like pitkanen, this part of the deal seems most straightwarward. Hamilton is worth more right now, but Hanifin could maybe catch up at some point.
I don't like giving up Lindholm because I still think he could fill a hole at center for us and that he would be helped under the new coach. He will probably score 50-60 or more with Monahan-Gaudreau, but knowing peters will misuse him as a grinding 1st line wing, I think we could get a lot more out of him as a two way playmaking center. He could turn into a Couturier, he's got the skill and smarts, but I know a huge number of people will strongly disagree. A fair judgement. We've had enough waiting and hoping and hanging onto flashes and glimmers. Did we sell low on him? You look at ferland and think of brouwer for oshie. Again, polarization. Ferland is either a tough guy who got lucky with his line mates or a tough guy who's shown he's got some previously untapped offense. We'll have to see. He sounds like the perfect guy to go with aho and teravainen. And of course he's "hard to play against" so hopefully management has fully satisfied their fix for toughness.
So we gave up potential for proven and even sold low on one of our guys...oh but wait there's one more guy in the deal. The youngest guy in the deal in Adam fox. Kid has massive potential. Only weaknesses are size and average skating. Could be a 50 point RHD, something that would be more valuable than Lindholm at his max potential. Evidently, he didn't want to sign because the Flames were so stacked on the right side, even a good spot in the AHL wasn't a guarantee. We trade Faulk and next year we can give him a a spot on the right side, a power play to quarterback, and some fellow American NCAA team mates. Or, if he's not quite ready, too minutes in Charlotte. Hopefully Tripp and Jack Drury can convince him to sign.
The contract negotiations seem like crap to me. If that was the reason for the trade, them our management team are idiots and Waddell hasn't learned anything since Atlanta. There were barely any negotiations at. They're Rfa, and we have all the leverage. Seems like crap to me. Plus these trade rumors were going on ever since Dundon gave his end of season media conference. They had been negotiating this deal for at least 3 weeks. I think they wanted to trade two young fan favorites that they were worried were getting infected with the losing culture. There's also the expansion draft to consider. We were inevitably going to have to trade one of the big 4. Faulk seemed obviously but we didn't have a right side replacement or anything to replace his PP scoring (or lack of this of late). Hamilton combines the big smooth skating dman (Hanifin) with the right handed bomb (Faulk), leaving us with the same skill sets as before in one package. This makes into easier to trade Faulk and have Pesce, Slavin, and Hamilton to protect. Exposing tvr and fleury won't be much of a loss. Then, if we can sign Fox, we've got Bean and Fox as expansion exempt players, leaving us with potentially at least 5 great dmen for years to come. Personally, I would leave bean in the ahl this year. Fleury is not ready for the top 4. Would prefer a LS veteran like a hainsey to glue it all together.
In summary, I think it's a win for both sides. Calgary wasn't going to sign Fox, so they can view this deal as Hamilton/ferland for Hanifin/lindholm. A clear win for Calgary. If we can sign Fox, I think that turns it to a win for us (but this was not a possibility for Calgary). Both sides assume risk. Calgary on whether Hanifin and Lindholm reach their potential and Carolina on whether they sign Fox and Ferland. I expect to see Lindholm putting up better numbers due to better linemates and Hanifin improving with a more reliable partner. The wrench in this then is Bill Peters. I don't like that Calgary is bringing in players that were often misused by the coach they just hired.
