his contract was so bad that it would take an increase in talent so dramatic that it just didn't appear possible that it wasn't worth the risk of him getting hurt.
He would have had to become a top 4 defenseman out of nowhere. The odds of that happening were what? maybe 0.5%? His chance of getting hurt and being stuck with a bad player at a bad cap hit was much much more.
It isn't about, well maybe he could become serviceable. It's about risk vs. reward. The risk of him getting hurt was far far more than an extremely unlikely reward of him actually being good enough for his contract. Even if he became a bottom pairing guy for a year it's still bad for us compared to just buying him out.
Look at the Pens and Justin Schultz. He was actually quite decent in his time with the Pens. He got useful out of nowhere, and they still didn't give him his 4 million dollar QO.
So he was really bad, came to Pittsburgh improved a fair bit, and they still deemed he wasn't worth 4 million dollars in hopes that perhaps he gets even a little better.
Similar choice here, except unlike Schultz showing some improvement with them, it's a much much tougher hill to climb for Cowen, and much more unlikely. Minus the extra year Cowen had. It's not a great comparison, but it makes sense basically Cowen's expensive extra year we din't want v. Schultz expensive QO they didn't want to be stuck with, and they had a better defenseman at the time of that choice and they still didn't keep him.
True. Great post.
