For the ten millionth time, they didn't HAVE to trade Boychuk. Even if you take out the fact that they stupidly paid Seidenberg instead of him, and even if you take out the fact that they didn't trade guys like Kelly/McQuaid/Campbell/Bart/etc. instead of him the year before, or even the whole summer before the season, they STILL could've gone into the season with Boychuk on the roster. So they would've had little flexibility in ****ing October. Who gives a ****??? He was a very important player here, on the ice and off of it. This is a guy who would be playing in a contract year, you would've gotten the best out of him for sure and given yourself a legitimate chance at a Stanley Cup.
And EVEN if you use the stupid logic of "we should get something for him instead of letting him walk as a UFA for nothing" (it's stupid because you aren't just letting him walk for nothing, you are having him play out the season and giving you your best shot at a Cup in a DWINDLING Cup window), then they STILL did the wrong thing by not waiting until the deadline to trade him, when prices are at their highest and teams are desperately trying to find the last pieces of their team to make a Cup run with.
They could've got a 1st and probably a decent prospect for him, because Boychuk's real value is in the playoffs. There is a small handful of defensemen I'd rather have on my team come playoff time than Johnny Boychuk. Very few players in the league ramp up their game like he does come the post season, he is an absolute warrior, and he is as clutch as anybody. That whole trade was a joke and people who act like it was some kind of formality, you couldn't be more wrong.
But even scratch all of that away, and say that they did have to trade Boychuk, that they were left with no choice. It would STILL be Chiarelli's fault for poor drafting and overpaying mediocre/average players to over compensate for it. It's not just "whoops poor us we're up against the cap". There are reasons for that.