Joined: Jul. 2021
Posts: 872
Likes: 455
This trade doesn’t seem to make any sense for Carolina. Rizzo looks like a pretty good prospect despite being picked 2nd-last in the draft, and Carolina still had two more years to sign him before they’d have lost his rights. Kase’s chance to make the NHL seems to have come and gone. If Carolina had no interest in Rizzo, I could see them doing him a favor by sending him to a team that will give him a chance, but they shouldn’t have had to include a draft pick for that. It’s only a 5th-rounder, but if a pick was included, it seems that it should have gone the other way.
The people who are saying that this is somehow tied to DeAngelo probably have it right. “If you buy him out and he signs with us, we’ll give you a late-round pick and prospect.” If you can trade for future considerations then there must be such a thing as past considerations too, even if it's not announced that way. That’s the only explanation that makes sense to me.