What is the precedent for sending first round picks/top prospects to off load bad deals? Not sure why it couldn't be done for B prospects and mid rounders.
the precedent is usually bad money for different bad money where the pieces fit, is there a precedent for a bad ~5 year contract for B prospects or middle picks? That doesn't feel like enough to make it interesting to me, I hope that I'm wrong
There are a few GMs who'd view him as a reclamation project in need of a change of scenery. A retention of 1 million could probably be appealing to some teams. And it's not like he's completely useless right now. He can kill penalties, and in the pp time he's been given, he's looked good.
well you can say that, but it's hard to know what he's viewed as. The analytics guys won't like him, and there's more and more of those taking major roles in front offices.
I wouldn't want to retain on him, seems pointless when at a million less he's paid like a low end #4 and playing with a partner who can carry him makes him passable as that. The way we're structured with ends of core contracts offsetting, you don't want dead cap in 3-5 years when you start to have to re-sign those guys with Rielly and Kadri up
I think the move with him is to wait until at least the summer and hope he's better for the rest of the year. If there's a play to get rid of Marleau (that hopefully they will have discussed at this point) then next year's cap crunch would be alleviated and you'd be looking to the summer after...and if that were the case I'd say the same - hope that Zaitsev has a better year, and with one less year left on his contract at a yet lower % of cap due to inflation, he might look less daunting for someone to acquire
