I just do not see the upside to him. I think at his very best he would be a very meh center for us. Sure the risk is mitigated to an extent with his contract only having 1 year on it, but it kills our remaining cap space. Right now if we spend 2m ish on our #3C we'll have enough cap space at the TD to do whatever the hell we want. We want Thornton (and he'd come here), cap wise, we can afford it. We want some other expensive #3C to push down the guy making 2m? Cap wise we can afford it - without having to dump salary. Which means if we're only picking up someone who's going to be meh to average when at his very best... they have to be cheap, so that if overall it's not working that we have options at the TD.
I know we've tossed Sheahan around a ton, but even him I don't think is a great option. But he's cheap - both apparently to acquire and against the cap (he's also youngish). Which means even if it's not a perfect match, we would have the cap space to try and correct things later on. As they start to make more than 2m, that gets harder and harder to do. I'm also not willing to move Hagelin for anything other than an ideal fit. We might have to lose him this summer, and it'll be sad, but if we have to, so be it. But we should be trying to keep him at all costs in the meantime. And Colburne isn't nearly good enough to make me want to move Hagelin.
That said... McKegg didn't really bother me tonight. There were a few things I wished he would have done differently... but overall he did better than I expected. The whole team felt and looked out of sorts... but that extended from the 2nd line to the 4th line.