Quoting: ChiHawk
De Haan is hardly overpaid. A $4.5M solid #3 or at worse #4 defensive D man is not a luxury, it's a solid contract. The issue most people on here forget to realize is the Hawks are loaded with defensive prospects moreso then at least 70% of the league. As such, they need to move guys like Mitchell, Boqvist, Beaudin, Carlsson and while De Haan is better then all those guys currently, the Hawks need to start developing these guys at the NHL level. Maatta is also a very solid 3rd pairing and his buyout is only $680k so Hawks could always buy him out too, but again, there are teams in the league that may want him. Put another way, if the Hawks didn't have these very good prospects, we would keep both Maatta and De Haan on the roster without question. They both should be in the league with a team that doesn't have the prospect depth. So to call them "scraps" simply tells me you don't know these players or the Hawks prospect pool.
I called the scraps because you've moved them in order to fit under the cap.
With these moves, you couldn't even afford to buy Määttä out. You'd still be over the cap.
I realise that both of them are good NHL level assets, but as I first said, in current day's NHL with tight cap situation, almost every team have better use for that money than taking a $4M bottom-4 D. The contracts are fine as they are, but moving them are extremely hard.
I can't really think of a single team that actually
a) would have a need for these d-men
b) could afford to take their contracts
c) wouldn't find an asset equal to them for cheaper as UFAs
If you can find me a team fits even two of these criteria, congrats.