Isle fans keep giving Detroit Thomas Hickey. The Wings want no part of that AHL defender and his roster hit for 2.5 without a much higher draft pick. I get why you want him gone, but no team takes him unless the offer is much sweeter.

On the Wings next year and much better than soon to be 32 year old Hickey:
Danny DeKeyser, Filip Hronek, Moritz Seider, Patrik Nemeth, Gustav Lindstrom, and arguably Alex Biega, and Dennis Cholowski.

Detroit has plenty of cap space to go after a d-man like Krug, Sami Vatanen, TJ Brodie, Brenden Dillon, or Joel Edmundson. All of which would be much better fits from what Detroit needs.

The idea is fine, take on contract. Get pick. we would just need a higher pick.
We really shouldn't be going for FA defence, theyre not how you build a winning franchise. Draft picks, and the occasional mentor for the young guys.

Ladd on LITR with the Hossa skin condition? Honestly I like that move its smart.

Going to take more than a 3rd for the Sens to take on two years of uncle leo. Would take a good prospect or a high pick otherwise they would just sign a vet in Free Agency

I'm fine with taking hickey, but isles have to add here

Detroit will take Hickey for NYI 2022 2nd, anything less and it's not worth bothering

Leo would appeal to a team like Ottawa because his cap hit is $3MM but he's only owed a total of $3.5MM over those two years. Saves Melnyk $$$.

During a normal year where you are bidding against pretty much the whole league that might be true. However, during a flat cap year where some ownerships will have issues matching expenses without taking in gate revenue plus only a few teams having cap space to add such a player adding in the fact those teams know the cap will be flat the following year....in other words there are always exceptions to that wisdom.

For example Mikhail Sergachev at age 22 is a RFA (but still a FA) or Vince Dunn at 23 both should be on Detroit's target list as their teams have significant cap issues. If you want to say just meant UFA's then I still say Krug (29) a top 4 d-man and PP QB and a strong Corsi For % relative (with a hometown connection that could be significant with COVID). Notice they all are LHD. That's also going after talent better than what is projecting from the prospects.

Right, but if you want to pay an FA D, you don't want to take away significantly from our ability to take on cap dumps. 1 D-man that could be a core piece moving forward would be perfect. Theres no sense falling into the Minnesota trap of trying to build through FA and end up languishing in mediocrity.

And you don't want to take on cap dumps where you have to buyout players so then they become an obstacle in the development of a prospect blocking their path for another year....there's pro's and con's to both paths....and lengthening the rebuild one more year while prospects get NHL experience.

Yes I do, we have a reasonable amount of NHL talent for sure, but not to the point where a cap dump playing on the 3rd line/2nd pair is going to be obstructive.

Most of these cap dumps (that are worth a valued pick) have MNTC’s at least...what makes you think they will waive them to come to a team expected to be among the worst in the league AND be okay with a 3rd line roles? Even if so there goes Veleno or Rass’s path or Svechnikov or (Raymond, Rossi, Perfetti)—those guys aren’t checking line grinders.

To be honest I don't know enough about the inner workings of an NHL lockerroom to comment. To know to what degree knowing their cap prevents the signing of another guy either exists, or affects them.
I don't mind keeping rookies off this roster for the majority of the next season to mature in GR.