Panik is only a year older than Martinook and is about the same age as Plachta. Panik is sort of the poor man's Taylor Pyatt, IMO. They're all about the same. I'd take any of them over Chipchura. Unfortunately, there's no getting rid of Chipchura.
Is Panik good enough to justify crushing Martinook with a demotion? And pushing Plachta one more spot down the depth chart?
Are any of Panik, Martinook, or Plachta worth paying an NHL salary to, while sending Chipchura down to the AHL to earn an NHL salary there? In essence, just chucking a million bucks into a barrel fire?
Whatever percentage of our budget that one million bucks represents, I'm not sure that Panik is that amount better than anything we've already got in the mix.
EDIT:
It looks like Panik may actually have a two-way deal. In that case, I'd pick him up if we could pull this off...
To AZ:
Bickell(15%retained)
2016 1st
To CHI:
Chipchura(waived+buried)
2016 3rd
To AZ:
2016 3rd
To Contender:
Bickell (additional 50%retained)
The idea would be for AZ to retain 50% of the remaining 85% of his salary in a separate deal with a different contender, in exchange for a 3rd round pick.
Chicago can burry 100% of Chipchura's contact in the AHL. Bickell's cap hit is reduced to 600k. For this, they downgrade from pick 25-30 to pick 61-65.
AZ ends up eating 1.9 this year and next in real dollars on Bickell. We dump Chipchura's remaining 950kay, though. So we get a pick in the 25-30 range but have to move down from the 61-65 range to the 86-90 range, and also eat about 950kay this season, and about 1.9m next season for the trouble.
Unnamed contender gets Bickell for 1.7 in cap this year and next. It costs them a late 3rd (86-90 range).
So I guess the question for AZ is whether picking up an extra late 1st is worth downgrading a 3rd and eating 2.85m over two seasons.
Give Panik a shot and if he doesn't work out, waive him again. If he clears, offer to let him go play in Europe where he can make more money and we don't have to pay him.
So...
Out: Chipchura, pick in 61-65 range, and about 2.85m
In: Panik, pick in 25-30 range, and pick in 86-90 range
In the context of the last draft, it's something like...
Out: Chipchura, Kyle Capobianco and about 2.85m
In: Panik, Nick Merkley, and Jens Looke