That would be far too rich for me. I wouldn't give up #5 alone. There is an enormous gap between the two proposals.
You would be right; Necas isn't worth a top 10 pick nevermind a top 5 one+ considering the massive raise he's due and what has been a somewhat tough season for him overall.
If Necas is traded from Carolina I would actually expect something slightly better in value to Debrincat's second trade from Ottawa to Detroit. Necas is a different player than Debrincat, but overall on a similar level (soft, poor defensively, purely offense-driven) to Debrincat from last year.
And if we look at the details of the trade of Debrincat, well, that netted Ottawa a late first (Detroit's choice of picks that ended up being the Boston pick in 2024), a somewhat useful roster player in Kubalik (who cratered this year for Ottawa), a middling prospect in Sebrango, and an additional fourth-round pick.
Now, I know that Debrincat really wanted to play for Detroit, made open overtures to that end, and that possibly tanked his value. But we've still got a recent example of a 24/25 year-old RFA trade for skill players that we can baseline around, loosely.
Let's say we increase the value a bit for a trade for Necas and change the parameters since the Hurricanes would need more immediate help than the Senators did in this scenario.
The Hurricanes would most likely be looking for young roster players, high-end prospects nearing readiness to play in the NHL, or good young-ish NHLers that they could plug into their lineup without needing to break the bank for them as they would need to for Necas ($7-8M/year).
And if we look at our roster, the only thing that kinda fits (but doesn't?) with smallish adds on our side would be Matheson. Which is a no-go for us given the youthful inexperience of our D, and probably for them too considering that they already have Slavin and are looking to extend Skjei as LDs.
Perhaps we could just go for value and entice them with a prospect like Joshua Roy and a late-first. But Roy is looking very good for us and that would hurt a lot to give at this stage of our rebuild considering that we're not exactly swimming in high-end F prospects nearing NHL-readiness at the moment.
So yeah, looking from afar a trade for Necas might seem like a fit for Montreal and Carolina, but from closer-up what we have to trade doesn't really match their needs/wants as well as other teams out West could, like say Utah with their plethora of picks and some interesting young pieces.
As much as I'd like to see Necas in Montreal, and think he'd be a good fit for us. I don't quite think it will happen. I've come around to that idea recently at least.
