Quoting: holtzer
That DeBrincat deal is overpaying hard. Eichel didn't even go for that much.
Well in fairness, while this proposal I believe is overpaying, Cat is worth more then Eichel. Why?
1) Eichel carrying a $10M cap hit trade in season has a very limited market, teams have already set their cap for the season and can't just squeeze in $10M thus there was limited demand
2) Eichel going into a major surgery with a very gray or unknown long term prognosis (which is still there). Not many teams are willing to eat up $10M in cap space for that
3) Eichel forced Buffalo to trade him, and was a public display
4) Eichel was a UFA in 4 years, that's a lot of risk and a lot of cap space for a guy that the acquiring team only gets for 4 years
Cat has never been injured, continues to get better and better, is a RFA, a year younger, traded in the offseason when teams can easily make cap space, and carrying a very affordable cap hit.