Quoting: ISeeBlueHeLooks
Is he though, with that contract? Three years at nearly $6 per is pretty bad. I just can't imagine anyone would give that to him if he were a FA this off-season. If he only had one year left on his deal I could totally see giving up a decent pick, but with three left I can't see it, at least without retention. The more I've thought about it, it seems like Dumoulin would be preferable to Schmidt and Pettersson since he only has one year left. Pettersson more preferable to Schmidt because his cap hit is $2 million lower. Do you think the Wings will be open to adding a vet LHD with term in, at least longer than two years?
Schmidt is 31 years old when the next season starts and he'll be 33 years old when his last year of this contract starts. That's not too old to be an effective defender and not to old to be tradeable either. His cap is not excessive and with his salary being lower than his cap and with Detroit's ability to retain salary and factoring in the cap increasing the next two years there won't be any problems to trade Schmidt in either one or two years time.
That means that his contract shouldn't be any hinder to Detroit acquiring him. What should factor in is usability, how well he fits our need and what the price is to acquire him. The length of his contract should rather be seen as an advantage, if we were to get someone with only one year left on the contract we'd have nothing to trade and the cost of getting that player wouldn't be recoverable. With Schmidt (and Pettersson) there's a pretty big chance that they will bring back at least as much, if not more than they cost to acquire.
Detroit needs two new LD if they intend to be good enough to challenge for one of the wildcards next season. One of the new defenders needs to be tailor made to compliment Hronek (who is our most "disjointed" defender) and the other needs to be able to run our 2nd PP as well as being able to be paired with Seider better than what we had this season. Schmidt fits that description pretty well. He also has the added benefit of being able to play both sides which is a big advantage in case we should get either Seider or Hronek injured.
Getting two new LD also gives the team the flexibility to ease in the new kids with limited, sheltered minutes and injury callups instead of throwing them in at the deep end and risk them drowning.
With the cap problems that teams like PIT, WPG, VGK and others find themselves in this summer is the ideal time to make these acquisitions. There are an abundance of good LD available that fit Detroit's needs.