The Bruins want Crosby. How do you feel about a Backes swap?
The gap between Letang and EK is exponentially less than the gap between Backes and Crosby.
- Letang will make 4-5M less than EK over each of next 5 years. Is production per $ that different?
- Letang puts up similar numbers
- Letang plays / can play similar minutes
- Letang and EK have similar speed
- Passing abilities are very, very similar.
Yes EK is the better player (second best defender in the NHL in my opinion), has less games missed to injury, takes less penalties, and with the time given - makes less mistakes.
Backes? Makes 2.7M less than Crosby... aaand that's where the comparison even comes remotely close. Utterly ridiculous comparison.
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Any trade involving the Pens (somewhere EK would likely re-sign, which must be taken into account) without Ryan attached, absolutely gets you one of the bright young players (Guentzel /Sprong /Jarry) and draft picks. However, the Pens would want salary (Schultz /Letang /Kessel) going back in order to re-sign him- and depending on which player goes back, the package would change. None of the above are cap casualties - and each is absolutely worth their current contract. If the trade includes Ryan - then the Pens would flat out be off the table. His cap hit coupled with EK's significantly cripples our team going forward.