Thanks to St. Louis' goaltending issues, they sound like they're ready to just throw all their stars out the door. The prices will likely be young prospects and picks, which we have (not oodles of, mind you).
Obviously the Pietrangelo rumour from Kypreos drew the headlines. Parayko is the younger, defensively better option that will cost more (longer term, smaller hit). Tarasenko's name is now also being floated in media speculation as everyone thinks he looks super unhappy with how things are going.
Those would all be fun, but other than Parayko, I think the biggest impact get might actually be Ryan O'Reilly as a one year rental (even though he has 4 more years at 7.5M to go).
We can easily absorb the cap hit this year at the deadline (thanks, Nylander!). Babcock loves having spare centres and faceoff takers and penalty killers. O'Reilly is a legitimate shutdown centre. Our left shots wings are weak, and he can line up in all three positions.
For all the griping about our defense corps issues, the real problem is structural and it stems from a lot of the forwards doing diddly squat in the d-box or providing poop support (hey, Marner).
So similar to my Taylor Hall rental proposal, let's rent him for a year and recoup the costs in other areas -- i.e. a young defenseman -- after July 1st when MLSE easily pays off his signing bonus up front for a better return from a team desperate for a 1st line quality centre (so much resale value).
Kadri - Tavares - Marner
Marleau - Matthews - Nylander
Johnsson - O'Rielly - Kapanen/Hyman
Ennis - Lindholm - Hyman/Brown
I assume one of Johnsson, Kapanen, Hyman, or Brown will be part of the deal, and one of the higher end Marlies (Bracco, Timashov), and probably a 1st rder.