Swedening the Pot

Ducks would rather buy out perry then give up a top 10 pick (where I see them placing again) to save that little, we arent that cap crunched

Yeah Anaheim isn't in that big cap trouble, and they're taking on an arguably worse contract since it's for an extra year. They'd never do that.

You're also overvaluing the return for both Petry and Byron

Yeah Detroit is going much younger under Yzerman, Detroit has no use for a 31 year old Jeff Petry. And Detroit already has their Michael McCarron in Michael Rasmussen.

Saving $4M+ a year on the cap (which keeps growing by $2M each year) is HUGE and the last of Petry's years is potentially a lockout. If they package him off, they can save another $2M+ in cap room. That puts them in the mix for Panarin, Duchene or to just re-sign Perry at a league minimum. If Anaheim is looking to get back into the mix in the very weak Western Conference, this is a quick and easy way to do it.

Petry was the sixth top-scoring RHD and also had the best advanced D stats on the team. He would fetch a first and a second from a lot of teams and Yzerman isn't likely to want to be quiet. Is McCarron worth a third? Probably not, but it's a safe bet the the Detroit scouts have a good idea what he can do.

Surprised (but not) by Byron critique, but presumably there is a decent deal that EDM would want to make because he checks a lot of boxes that they don't have in the middle-6.

Savings that small isnt worth a potential lottery pick no matter how you try to spin it, We aren't that desperate to get rid of him, hes still a solid player and while he isnt worth his cap hit, he isnt bad enough to give up that good of a pick to get rid of