Okay! I am frustated with a slow summer and i can't wait for Hockey to start up again, so...

Let's start with wild speculation. Looking at the team, i see that Filip Kuba is on his last year with the senators. Let me put My GM hat. Since I would not keep him, i would try to trade him for some value. I see two possiblility. 1. Trade him to a team that is shallow on offensive defensemen for a prospect. 2. keep him until the trade deadline for  depth and possible injuries and hopefully he raises his value with a bounce back season for a pick.

I want to explain what i was looking for: Kuba for a prospect that might have some value for us but seems to be buried in another team that would need immediate help offensively on the blue line.

Wild conjectures after the jump

My preference would be to trade him now (with the right deal in place). We run the risk of shallowing our defense if injuries become a problem. I see an advantage to give some good time (15-18 minutes a game) to either of David Rundblad, Jared Cowen or Patrick Wiercioch instead of Kuba.

I identified Los Angeles and Minnesota as potential partners. The Los Angeles Kings seem like a very good partner, Western division + need to win sooner then later. If they would give us Tyler Toffoli as Hockey News has him lower in the prospects + we would have another 67's player and a linemate of Shane Prince.

The other potential is Minnesota Wild (also Western). They do not have the drive to win it all next year but they are looking for offense (Dany Heatley, Devin Setoguchi). Their defense is very low offensively, Marek Zidlicky is their most offensive D-man with 7 goals and 24 points. Ideally, i would like to see Mikael Granlund come back our way. He seems to have stalled but here's what i wrote last year before the draft.

Mikael Granlund: Center. A playmaker, as we have Jason Spezza, he would ideally help make a good one-two punch of good playmaker centers, like Crosby-Malkin, Gomez-Drury. We have a lot a centermen (Spezza, Fisher, Regin, Kelly, *Cullen*, Winchester, ect.), this is not a positional need but he is ranked as the best European skater and he has played with Pulkkinen. He would not be a slam dunk (no way we could get one at the 16th position), but him and Spezza would set us at the centre position for years. He is another pick that we should think of getting if he is still available and who else is still available in the first round. In the second round, he would be a steal.