Mailloux, Dobes, Beck, Roy, 1st & 2nd round picks.
I feel like some combination of these assets could land us a pretty serviceable 2C while we wait for one of Hage, Kapanen, or someone else to emerge from within.
We can afford to wait and see how things shake out. Keep in mind that with Suzuki’s continued development that now has him on the cusp of joining the league’s elite tier of centers, we really only need a 2C capable of producing 50-60 points, preferably with decent faceoff ability and defensive game. That shouldn’t be that hard to find, either via trade or from within the prospect pool.
I wouldn’t be interested in moving anything worth more than the above group of assets, unless it was for a young C with top line potential - think along the lines of the Cozens deal. Even then, it would require some careful consideration, as you don’t want to dig into the team’s depth too much, both in terms of roster and prospect pool. We aren’t in a position where we need to do that, which is why I think Hughes didn’t pursue Cozens too aggressively - BUF wanted too much for us with how much of a gamble Cozens still is.
Mailloux: he’s got the potential to be a decent PMD in the NHL. However, I think he’s been made redundant by both the emergence of Hutson and the drafting of Reinbacher. Hutson is a LD, but he already fills the role you hope that Mailloux will someday be able to. Reinbacher is a more complete two-way type of D, who may eventually develop the type of offensive game that Mailloux is known for anyway. Mailloux is the odd man out, imo.
Dobes: looks to have a decent chance of becoming an NHL goaltender. I don’t see his ceiling as being all that high though, tbh. I think best case scenario, he becomes an okay (average) #1 goalie. Who knows if he ever actually reaches that ceiling though. The problem is that we have Fowler in the pipeline, as well as Volokhin. Imo, both these guys have a higher ceiling. Thats not to say that both will end up better, but you have to play the odds and someone has to be the odd man out, especially since we can get by rolling with Montembeault until one of the other two (Fowler or Volokhin) emerges.
Beck: love this kid’s work ethic and attitude, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet that he’s an NHL player someday, but I just don’t see very high upside here - imo he has a Scott Laughton type of ceiling, which is great to have, but with Evans signed for the next 4 years, and some of the other pieces we have in the system, I think we can afford to package him for something of more use. Again, ideally you’d like to keep him, but I don’t see top-six upside and we are going to need to trade someone of value if we are going to go after a 2C.
Roy: has top-six PP specialist type upside (think Michael Ryder). We don’t really have room for a guy like this anytime soon, unless it’s filling in for injuries in the top-six. He doesn’t have the skillset for a bottom-six role. Pretty redundant piece, imo, but he will have some kind of value to teams looking for a future winger with scoring upside. I think we see him dealt sooner rather than later.
Imo, these 4 pieces are right in the sweet spot in terms of trade value; they all have enough value that they could return something decent if packaged together or with picks, but at the same time, we can afford to part with any or all of them if it gets us the piece(s) we need.
