Everyone is not bad with MacDonald, and he's not one of the worse defenders I've ever seen, he's functional, not pretty, but he has a solid track record of decent performance - people just have ridiculous expectations (and have amnesia when it comes to the defensemen the Flyers have iced over the last decade!).
The less time on MacDonald's contract, the easier it will be to move him with salary retained and actually get an asset in return, if not at the TDL, then this summer. When you look at the money received by 3rd pair defensemen in free agency, would you prefer MacDonald 1yr/$2.5M or some scrub at 3yr/$6M?
Ghost hasn't been bad this year, but not nearly as good as last year. If he's not injured that suggests that last year was a bit of an anomaly and his "baseline" is probably somewhere between these two years. Which means he'll probably be better next year but may never approach 60+ points again.