Quoting: MrF
Three picks for 2M isn’t useful? In a draft where there will be more players from rounds outside of the first see the NHL?
I’m posting for discussion. Appreciate your response.
Detroit already have 11 top-3 round picks in the next two years and there are more to come from taking on cap dump deals of players that are actually useful and fill a need and will play on our roster.
If two teams were to approach Detroit asking us to take on cap to facilitate a trade between them then it will, of course, be looked at. It is, however, a completely different thing to take on a player not knowing if you can get rid of him again. Such a deal would always have to be negotiated by the two teams selling and buying the player, see the Savard deal between CBJ and TBL only two months ago.
There isn't a shortage of deals available for Detroit this offseason. There are few teams with spare cap and a lot of teams in cap trouble. Detroit cannot do all trades they're offered, there's both a 50-contract limit as well as a 90-rights limit and Detroit have to sign a lot of players to fill the two rosters in Detroit and Grand Rapids as well as make sure they don't have to get rid of their picks because they are up against the limit.
Detroit will simply put pick the deals that are most advantageous to them and say no to the rest and one very big part of that is making sure that the deals work both in the short as well as the long term for us. So, no deals for players we have no use for, roster spots in GR are for our own prospects, not someone else's castoffs, and no trades for players in positions where we have no roster spots for them.
Detroit's current needs are; a 2C (like Tyler Johnson), two LD (one veteran on a two year contract like Gardiner or Gostisbehere + a young good top-4 like Vince Dunn), waiver exempt B (or better) prospects (several needed on all forward positions) and one exempt RD that's good enough to do injury call-ups without caving.