I think that's the big question - does moving Schmaltz make this team fundamentally worse? For me, I can't get on board with that, because for me the players whose subtraction make a squad quantifiably worse are game-changing type players. Schmaltz isn't that to me. He's an offensive weapon, but so is Dylan Guenther. He's a creative scorer, but so is Logan Cooley. There isn't anything he does that cannot be recreated either by another player by himself or in aggregate by the team, IMO.
Or, in other words, is Schmaltz a critical piece, or is he simply a good piece? If by losing Schmaltz, we gain a really solid guy on the back end who improves us defensively, is that a net balance, or even improvement?
I don't think we trade Schmaltz for a bag of pucks. But I do think we should trade him at the draft for some assets that will help us balance the team better. And, in fact, he might be the only player we have where this would be possible.