Yes, he did hold all the cards, thanks to Lou. Marleau didn't want to play here
specifically because he only wanted to play in San Jose and be close to his family. San Jose could not afford to take him at 6.25m. The only alternative was to send him to somewhere that would buy him out. Carolina was one of the only teams if not the only team that could afford to do that.
He did not. I addressed this in my previous post.
Well you mentioned Kane, so:
Analyzing Dubas's performance - (Full Analysis)
Matthews was actually not that far off from Malkin pre-signing, and a better goal scorer, even though Malkin started in his D+2 season, and got to play with Crosby a bunch.