Mathieu Joseph, 3rd-rd pick traded to Blues for nothing

If you thought the trade return for Jakob Chychrun was underwhelming, hold onto your unpasteurized milk, because the Mathieu Joseph return is worse:

That's right, the Sens are paying the Blues in the form of a 3rd-round pick in 2025 to take Joseph's contract off their hands. This move clears up about 74% of David Perron's salary for the next two seasons, though the team will probably argue that it opens up some extra space to sign Shane Pinto and ignore that other bit.

After being trade fodder a year ago, Joseph stormed back last season when there were no takers, setting career highs in assists (24), points (35), and time on ice per game (16:28). Joseph's biggest value came on the PK, where he played 1:46 per game and allowed 9% fewer expected goals against vs. league average. It's unclear why Staios and co. felt that they need to offload Joseph at any cost, especially when it seems clear there was no market for him, but they did. Maybe, after the Chychrun trade and now Joseph, this is a warning to all players to not be friends with Thomas Chabot.

The team now sits at $6.576M in cap space with 11 forwards, 6 defencemen, and 2 goalies under contract and that looming Pinto extension. Keep in mind that the 11 forwards number assumes that Angus Crookshank and Noah Gregor will be up with the big club, which they probably both won't. At least on the defence front, it seems like that Tyler Kleven will start with the big club, while Travis Hamonic and Jacob Bernard-Docker rotate out the 6th defenceman spot. I still suspect that even with a Pinto extension, the Sens will look to sign another depth forward or two, unless they're really sold on giving Roby Jarventie, Egor Sokolov, and Cole Reinhardt some real NHL looks.