Carrick probably ends up being an AHL guy who might get a call up if we have injuries next year. Although I honestly can't say he's any worse than Santini right now. At least he brings a little offense to the table. What does Santini actually do well? He's kind of like the JQ of the defense to me.
And we're not even factoring in Yak if he stays, or the annual European defenseman signing, or one of the kids other than Smith having a great camp. Although I guess it would be a good problem to have too much depth at defense than not enough (especially given Vatanen seems to get hurt every year lately).
Add Yak to the list of bottom pairing guys. At some point, we have to cut bait with some of these guys. Or we can't keep complaining about how our defense sucks while wanting to bring back every bottom pairing guy on the roster, even when some of them are on expiring deals. Even though a couple are RFA's. But like I said, even if we don't keep them, you know there'll be ''Why didn't we keep Yak?'', ''Why did we let Mueller walk? He's better than Severson and Butcher!'', ''Why didn't we re-sign Carrick? Look at all those points he had for us!'', ''Santini is a scratch? Really? While guys like Severson keep playing? What is the world coming to?! You know Santini is actually really good! He plays defense, unlike these other guys and knows how to stay in his own end the entire game AND he hit some dude from the Panthers in a game back in November of 2017!'' posts.
The problem is Carrick probably won't pass through waivers due to how high he was drafted. At least I think he has a much higher probability of being claimed than Santini.
I don't think either would pass through waivers, but I think you're right, in that I think there's a higher probability that Santini passes through waivers than Carrick. Someone will claim Santini because he's played over 105 NHL games (probably at least 110 before the season is over, he's currently at 106) and because he was picked in the 2nd round. Carrick was actually picked in the 5th round a year before Santini in 2012, so he's not a high pick, but he will have (probably) played over 200 games in the NHL by the end of this season.