Okay, so it sounds like McCrimmon made an early pass at talking to other teams about Schmidt and a bunch of other GMs maybe tried to squeeze him on price, thinking Vegas was desperate. (Meanwhile, per Drance, it sounds like Florida was ready to offer a decent package but were maybe on Schmidt's no-trade list?) And then Benning jumped on the Schmidt offer when Vegas called, either because he shrewdly assessed the situation or because he doesn't really know how to negotiate. Either way, it was the right move on his part.
I still don't fully understand why Vegas was so willing to send a very good defender to a division rival that had nearly ousted them in the playoffs just a few weeks ago. Maybe they were just in a scramble to sign Pietrangelo and didn't have the bandwidth to circle back to other teams. Or they just aren't that worried about the Canucks next year. Or they really think this Canada division thing is going to happen.
Oh well, good for us.