That's completely false. Gavrikov is about as good as prime Savard. We'd know, they played together on the same pairing. And the Savard that was traded to Tampa was clearly past prime.
If you follow the talk among Jackets fans, that is the preference. We'd rather sign him long term, we don't care as much about more late firsts. And Jarmo has said that they tried. He just doesn't want to stay.
I wouldn't say Gavrikov is as good as Savard in his absolute prime. That version of Savard was an absolute stud, borderline top-pair sort of shutdown D. But he's definitely better than the shell of Savard that the Jackets traded to Tampa. I think realistically...Gavrikov falls somewhere in between.
Given what the broken, declining husk of Savard got (along with other relatively recent deadline comparables), i think it's reasonable to expect Gavrikov to get at least a similar sort of return. Even if it is "overpayment"...it's kind of the going rate. Especially for a guy that contending teams can actually fit into their tight cap situations.
He's still exactly the sort of "safe" defensive presence that teams love to add toward the deadline. Good, contending teams usually have the puck-moving and offensive component from the back end more or less figured out. What they ideally want to add is more depth, in the form of "low maintenance" reliable guys who can play minutes, limit their mistakes, and not have to panic over matchups when they get caught out there against top players. Which is exactly what Gavrikov is.
