EK at 8m a year won't fetch this big of a package. Not even close.

Also, I don't get why Carolina is going after EK. Keep Pesce and call it a day. Their D core is already amongst the top in the league.

They can just add Dumba or DeAngelo if they want another Dman.

I can't understand it for the life of me either. Pittsburgh I understand because they need to take a high risk like that to be relevant. But Carolina has the best defense and the most offensively productive defense last year. Why would they bring in such a high risk player?

I think it’s the “distressed asset” thing, similar to what they did with Burns. Circumstances are much different as Burns was coming off a rough year and EK just posted an incredible season, but with EKs previous 3-4 seasons before that it puts that risk in place. I think that’s why the canes are ultimately in on EK, because they think they can get him around 7.5-8 for less than he’s worth. And I believe that’s why SJS hasn’t moved him yet, the pens offer probably doesn’t have as much value as they want and they know canes could blow it away if they wanted to so they’re hoping canes will get restless and send a big haul. I really doubt that actually happens tho and I think it’s most likely canes don’t get ek keep pesce and take another run at Vladdy.

Drop Skjei and a first and put a condition on the second.

Don’t do the Schultz deal - rather have cheaper chatty in that role. Trade Skjei or pesce for top 9 winger instead or futures to get one.

Burns has also been very durable and Karlsson an extreme opposite of that. Add in the cap hit discrepancy and Karlsson's full NMC instead of Burns' three team NTC. Was Carolina one of his three teams or did he waive? If I'm Grier, I'd rather risk another season and see if Karlsson can improve his trade value before unloading him on a Burns-like return this offseason. Then again not sure if ownership is pressuring a move to unload salary while tanking either.

Yeah that’s true. Although CAR wasn’t on Burns 3 team list and wasn’t until GMDW called and asked if he’d waive that it even became a thing so I’m not sure that piece of it is too much different to ek NMC.

The risk for Grier is that ek ankle blows up and he’s not moveable for rest of the deal. I guess the question is what’s more important - maximizing return on ek or getting whatever you can to clear the space and make sure his value doesn’t go down?

I’d want to maximize the return this year and to do it I’d eat as much of the contract as possible. Ek at under 6M brings more teams in the fold and gets a bidding war going most likely, even with injury risk. Guess that’s an ownership decision not to eat that much dead cap essentially, which is a fair stance and hard to argue from that standpoint too.

EK for Gunler, Drury, 24 1st and 25 3rd is the best I think CAR should do. They don't need Karlsson.