DALLAS - CALGARY

[Calgary.Flames]

To Calgary: Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson (74)

To Dallas: Alexei Bereglazov (63), Brian Hart (61), Ryan Graves (80), PIT's 2014 3rd round pick



Obviously MPS is the best player in this deal and he just might be the right guy for my 2nd line. Bobby Ryan's departure left an open spot on Sam Gagner's right wing that was never adressed until just now. His contract fits my organization's mentality going forward in a great way. On the down side, MPS has had issues with staying healthy in the past years and he is just coming back from an abdomen injury that had him sidelined for about 6 months.

Dallas, on the other hand, told me he wanted young players that could play physical and all 3 guys going his way project to be NHLers with grit. Hart will have the SH/HI combo while Bereglazov and Graves will both be near 99 HI at some point.

Hart and Graves I selected myself knowing that their value would be interesting to others at some point and Bereglazov was acquired last year for a 2nd round pick who turned out to be Ian McCoshen.

I have lots of blueliners in the system and those guys are expandable to me right now. This trade is paying me back for all this time I spent scouting draft classes and making sure I'm hand picking all of those guys myself, not letting any picks get auto'ed.


Thanks for the deal.

[DallasGM]

my thoughts for this team are i wanna continue to rebuild but also build a team that is bigger stronger and hard hitting and can play at both ends of the ice!

MSP is a good player but soft these young guys give me some options on defence where my team is getting very old and something upfront

thanks CGY

[Virtual Jarmo]

We will have a ruling on this trade tomorrow. It's been subject to quite a bit of discussion.

[Virtual Jarmo]

This trade is approved by majority Committee vote.

I've gotten some PMs regarding this deal and I've yet to receive a PM in favor of this trade. Allow me to break down what our thoughts are. First off, it appears that Steve has a plan for his team, as he's made two other transactions alongside this one. Because this isn't a stand-alone deal, we have some context at our disposal to evaluate the trade.

In the case of Paajarvi, he's a very talented offensive player with enough HI to get by defensively. That's also a team-friendly contract. Steve is dealing from a position of strength, with four other 80+ OF forwards on the roster, as well as the one-dimensional 78 OF forward Yaro Alshevsky.

As for what Dallas is getting in return, Alexei Bereglazov has a big HI ceiling and room for overdevelopment in his other defensive attributes.

Brian Hart is a third-liner with some offensive upside and some sandpaper defensively. He has a good amount of development in front of him, so we'll see what he winds up as.

Ryan Graves is a very intriguing prospect. High CON, high POT, very one-dimensional. Another player with overdevelopment upside, but his HI will certainly reach its peak and he'll be a mean player to go up against. He's a lot like Anton Saveliev with a much higher CON.

It's clear what the goal is here for Dallas and he explained as much. He wanted to add players with HI, which, as we all know, is a very powerful attribute in the file. Taken in the context of the other trades and with the potential of the package of prospects, as well as a 3rd round pick that could either be trade currency or perhaps a future POT booster, there's at least a clear direction in this deal.

Steve's taking a roster devoid of balance and trying to put his stamp on it. While we can argue that he should have waited a couple of days to see if another, better offer came along, the plan is clear and the value gap may not be as big as it appears on the surface.

I respectfully ask that anybody with opinions on this deal utilize the Private Messaging feature of the boards to express those thoughts.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Entered.

Bereglazov CON drop reset.