I’d have no issue with a 2 year deal at 4M AAV for Z. Leave him unprotected and Seattle probably takes him anyway which is no issue from me.
If Seattle takes him he’s off the books before the Makar/Landy contracts. Either way he’s gone before Mackinnon’s next contract.
I guess I wouldnt hate it... Especially with Byram coming in on his ELC money and Timmins on his ELC.
But, I honestly think I'd rather have Graves at ~1.5M on the bottom pairing over Zadorov at ~4M or more playing that same role.
And seriously as soon as next year you're probably in that position where it is one or the other. Because next year you'll have:
Girard - Makar
Byram - EJ
Zadorov/Gravy - Cole
And on top of that you would have Timmins and Rosen who could easily be NHL guys by that time if they get a shot in the NHL this season. So maybe you dont even keep Graves around either or you do so as the #7D instead.
Long story short we just have a lot of options in the next couple years on Defense coming up, we know what Zads is right now and I dont think we need to be paying him 4M a year for the role he will fill when other guys could play that role for cheaper and quite possibly even be better at it.
Plus given how a lot of teams still overrate physicality a tonne(See Flames, Calgary), we could probably fetch a solid return for him this summer at the draft. Not 1st round pick or anything but something like a 2nd + B- prospect or along those lines. Which for a team that's already without a 2nd and a good chance we move more assets at the deadline to go on a run this year its probably a good idea to try and recover some of them again this offseason .