Peat
Registered User
- Jun 14, 2016
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Hornqvist and Rust will likely be retained. Cole not so much. Hagelin doesn’t effect the contracts but he will be playing fourth line minutes and making 4 mil will we can spend that 4 mil on someone else, like a Cole type. Cole shouldn’t be payed 4mil but someone higher than his caliber should be.
Grabbing a 4m dman on free agency probably doesn't result in that big an upgrade on Cole. Grabbing one in trade means taking a gamble or paying out substantial assets for something we arguably don't need.
And either way, giving out Hagelin's salary to someone else who's going to stick around longer than Hagelin's contract probably starts causing problems when Guentzel gets paid and even more problems the season after.
I don't want to be keeping Hags regardless, or say that there's no way we'll need to move him for salary. Maybe we will need to; he's certainly our most expendable big salary player. But that's only a maybe, and there's some big possible problems with spending that salary elsewhere. He's not a player that's "got to go".