Unless Wahlstrom is part of a deal that brings back a quality player no reason to trade him for peanuts. Would be better to hope he links up with the Scarecrow and visits Oz.
I think Wahlstrom/Holmstrom are being traded. They have to find a way to get the roster compliant to the cap either way.
Can Lou turn Holmstrom, Bolduc, and the 2025 2nd into McGroarty?
Can Lou turn Pageau and Wahlstrom into Lundestrom and a minimal contract dump (i.e. Vaakanainen)?
Dunno if either partner in crime bites, but it seems like we'd need something like this to happen in order to get a boost AND be back under the cap from the get-go.
Teams like San Jose, Chicago, Buffalo, Calgary, Colorado, Utah, and maybe even a Carolina are some of the other teams I can see possible deals involving the pieces above to be involved with.
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Otherwise, as things are now, Lou could just re-up Holmstrom and send Wahlstrom through waivers (while letting Iskhakov walk over to i.e. Russia). Then he could just enter the season as is, cap compliant. No big changes. Duclair and Tsyplakov become the newbies that replace Clutterbuck and Martin. Fasching, Gauthier, and Karlström are contracted forwards 13-15.
Wahlstrom likely doesn't make it through waivers (or he does and lands in BPort, at which point his camp would likely make some noise and perhaps a failure to report), but if Wahlstrom is plucked, then the Isles would move up to the front portion of the waiver wire pecking order and can, at the latest right before the season, grab someone off waivers, particularly if they see a real nice bubble player/younger prospect being sent down that they fancy.
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The little caveat to all this is hearing Lou say they'd be re-upping Wahlstrom and would not just be giving him away for nothing. Which is correct.
And honestly, if Duclair is the only thing coming of the "Roy input", then the statements in the presser a few days after playoff dismissal won't seem all that ingenuous.
But right now, it looks like Wahlstrom's contract is the one that will ultimately be breaking the camels back capwise.
And he's not even a guy the team wants to move forward with.