He probably sees the same things I see: our only RHD under team control after next season will be Dotchin, we can’t afford Karlsson’s next contract without gutting our roster, Foote is both our only real hope of developing a top four (or possibly even top pairing) RHD and one of our best chips with which to trade for one, and there are moves we can make to upgrade our defense for this playoff run that don’t require us to trade him away so there’s no point in doing so for a luxury like Karlsson.
Yzerman is most likely just trying to see if he can get Karlsson for a price that won’t disrupt his longterm plans to what he considers to be an unsatisfactory degree; if not he’ll move on to a different target. I just hope he doesn’t wait so long for Dorion to blink that those other targets all get taken by other teams.
An alternative explanation is that Yzerman is fine with trading Foote for Karlsson and would rather Foote be the last piece he caves on than offer Foote now and have Dorion demand that he up his offer from there.
He probably kicked tires a little harder than anyone else. Until now.
Tough to say if Yzerman ever actually had plans to acquire Karlsson. Makes you wonder if Yost is just ridiculous though with his "the two teams have been working hard on this for the past three days." Doesn't really sound like that happened.
Dorion: "We're gonna need Sergachev."
Yzerman: "No."
Dorion: "Ok, well we're gonna need a big package centered around Foote, plus a roster player."
Yzerman: "No."
Dorion: "What exactly are you looking to achieve here?"
Yzerman (probably): "Just keep me in the loop if any Atlantic teams offer something better."