Just like any Wednesday, Eliotte Friedman publishes his 31 Thoughts column on Sportsnet and the hockey world goes mental for a couple of hours. This week, he very briefly mentions a trade idea that had Red Wings Twitter arguing over themselves like mad.

Friedman doesn’t elaborate on it at all, but just quickly mentions something for all of us to constantly ponder over the possibility of this happening.

In a vacuum, sure it can work. But there are multiple factors that come into play.

Justin Faulk was just named a captain this year. They love him there and I cannot see a world that they would name a player captain and then ship him off to another team within 9 months. Ron Francis is too nice to do that.

Saying that, Carolina has a plethora of young talent on their blueline. Noah Hanifin, Haydn Fleury, Brett Pesce and Jaccob Slavin just to name a few. All four of these guys are playing crucial minutes for the team this season and are 23 or under. As well as LHD Jake Bean, who’s playing in the WHL right now and will surely be in contention to make the team next year.

Not only roster transactions come into play with this move, but as always, the cap needs to be considered. Faulk makes 4.83M for this year and the next two. An extremely good cap-hit for his caliber of player. But can Carolina keep him at that with their young talent on the rise?

Of course they can, they have 25.5M in projected cap space next year.

But they have just signed both Pesce (4.025M/6 Yrs) and Slavin (5.3M/7 Yrs) to long-term deals and a smart GM will always be thinking about contract timelines with their players.

Sebastian Aho is still on his ELC, Hanifin needs a contract this summer, Fleury will need a contract the summer after that, and these are only the core players that will need new contracts.

Elias Lindholm, Joakim Nordstrom, Klas Dahlbeck and Trevor van Riemsdyk are all RFAs this summer. That is a lot of negotiations to be had.

Derek Ryan, Josh Jooris and Lee Stempniak are UFAs this summer, but who knows management’s plans and if they see re-signing them as a priority.

This might seem like I’m just naming names for the sake of it, but a GM truly has to think up to 5 years in advance and where this team will be. The future looks extremely bright for the Hurricanes.

Martin Necas, Jake Bean, Eetu Luostarinen, Julien Gauthier and Janne Kuokkanen are all extremely talented players that are currently not with the Canes. Francis should be thinking of their contracts and the potential bind they will be in if they do not project their cap down the line. It might seem like a fake problem since the cap is set to increase year after year. But who knows?

Would thinking ahead in 5 years really warrant trading away your captain on the blueline at the deadline or this upcoming offseason? Is it the right move for a Red Wings team looking to get younger? I’m just asking the questions here.

As of February 8th, Dom Luszczyszyn has the Hurricanes at a 35% chance of making the playoffs. If they make a run closer to the deadline, then they won’t be selling off any core pieces. So all this discussion will have to wait until the summer if that happens.

Faulk is an elite defenceman. He is just insanely good and every single team should want that.

According to Corsica, he is currently 31st in 5v5 CF% among all 258 NHL blueliners. Automatically making him a top defenceman in the league.

If you consider defenceman that have played minimum 800 minutes so far this season, he is 11th in 5v5 CF%.

Most teams have played around 53 or so games so far this season. If you divide the 800 minutes among the 53 games, it comes to just over 15 minutes per game. Doing this, you take out all the chance of a random player playing 100 minutes total and posting a crazy high CF%.

Offensively, he’s among the best on the blueline. Among all 258 D, Faulk is 13th in 5v5 xGF with 41.93. The puck is supposed to be going into the net when he’s on the ice. The Hurricanes have just been unlucky for the most part of this season. If they can attain more offensive assets, then why not? Imagine if this team actaully got luck on their side for once.

All in all, the Hurricanes have an abundance of cap space and Faulk is among the elite players in the league. Two things the Red Wings do not have. But would thinking ahead 5 years really affect Hurricanes management’s mind on how to approach trading away core pieces? If Faulk is so damn good then why would the Canes think of trading him away?

These are some questions that only Ronny Francis can answer.

From the Wings perspective, trading away Athanasiou could be a tough pill to swallow, but inevitably could be worth it. AA has been gaining more and more ice-time as the season progresses. Blashill has been actually trusting him and giving him the minutes he deserves. Thank god.

Management and analysts have become more aware of when a player’s true peak is in their career. For years it was thought that a player is at their best in their late-20s to early-30s – then it slowly got younger and younger.

As we are all aware, the NHL is now a young man’s league. Players are performing better, younger and their peak is now believed to be analytically proven around 24-26.

Athanasiou is turning 24 in August.

This means that he will be entering his prime at the start of next season and will most likely have a successful five or so years after that at the top of his game. So why would the trashpile Red Wings waste his prime while they are simmering at the bottom of the league?

Instead of him putting up meaningless points for a garbage team, get future assets for him and sync up the timeline for when this team will be back to being respected among the best. Get a draft pick or a 19-20 year old, that means 5-7 years from now that player will be at their respective peak. Gives the Wings time to build a team and not feel like they are wasting a player’s career away.

Among the 304 forwards that have played at least 1500 minutes at 5v5 within the past 3 seasons, Athanasiou is 248th in CF%.

That is abysmal.

His CF% might be terrible but his point production has been elite among the same time frame.

Within the same group of forwards with the same minimum ice-time, Athanasiou is 22nd in Primary Points per 60 minutes. That is better production the past 3 seasons than: Ovechkin, Benn, Kessel, Seguin, and James van Riemsdyk. Just to name a few.

Andreas is currently at 23 points in 42 games this season and is currently riding a 6-game pointless streak. Those raw numbers do not sound impressive, but there are many more factors, like ice-time, that you have to factor into that. If he had more responsibility on a team that number could go up, but we will never know.

Well, as I stated before with the timeline of this trade. The Red Wings receiving an older player does not make any sense from a rebuilding perspective. Faulk is in his prime right now and might continue this production for a few more years. But again, this Wings team is trash now and will be trash in the future. So why get even older?

You could argue that Faulk would accelerate the rebuild. A #1 RHD is what so many teams desire right now and having one for the next five years is certainly a way to be confident that you can be a winning team within a few years from now.

My point-of-view is to get as young as you can. I love Faulk, but not with the Red Wings. If this was a young team that had the cap room, then I would be 100% on board.

It just isn’t the right time Justin! Come back later and we’ll treat you well. XOXO