Yes, he is our third best forward, and keeping him became that much harder when we signed our best forward --- this is exactly what we knew was a probably consequence. Lo and behold, here we are.
And the Rangers very well could have a plan in place to replace him, but we don't know that. And again, unless you want Gorton to post his playbook on here, all we're going to have is the speculation you just got done saying you didn't want.
Yes, we can move Buch, and Skjei, but we're either getting salaries back, or we're getting prospects who don't help. So all we're doing is essentially standing in place because while we're better with Kreider than without him, we're not necessarily better in the short term trading Buch and Skjei as part of salary dumps. Because if you're not taking contracts back, in an effort to improve the current roster, that means you're trading them for futures --- which is exactly what you yourself don't want to do with Kreider. And when all is said and done, moving Buch and Skjei will essentially give us the money to resign Kreider, ADA and maybe Strome, but now we have to go and replace those other guys and I'm not convinced that the net result is substantially better than the path you don't like.
So that leads us back to the very likely scenario that this team is going to have to make additional moves, regardless of whether Kreider is here. But now, as we make those moves, we'll have $20 million lock into a pair of 29 year old winger and any flex room will have been eaten up by resigning what we already had.
So that leads me back to my disagreement that keeping Kreider is simply a matter of moving Buch, or moving Skjei. Because those moves bring with them certain consequences, and those consequences (good and bad) will impact other moves that are coming one way or the other.
