Quoting: OilersNation
Fabbro is likely worth a 1st, underrated numbers, RFA rights and low QO. Carrier isn’t, but is definitely worth a 2nd. He also has great numbers with Ekholm, with a lot of Dzone starts. Ceci is mediocre on a good day andhas one decent season in his entire career, so yes IMO he has negative value (-2nd round pick) . Kulak is decent but is holding back opportunities for Broberg. Desharnais is simply replaceable, however a guy like Trotz might like him.
Quoting: OilersNation
I do think GMs are probably higher on Ceci than me and almost certainly with Desharnais. So you are probably right that I overpaid, but I didn’t want to be labeled as a homer. However, I think Carrier and Fabbro fit the team perfectly.
Quoting: OilersNation
Carrier has the shakier metrics but has really good numbers with Ekholm. Would create an ideal shutdown pairing. Fabbro is a smart, cost controlled, defensive dman that’d work great with Broberg. This d-core immediately becomes top 5 in the league.
While Carrier certainly has good numbers with Ekholm, that's true of most Dmen. I don't have any reason to believe that their chemistry was unique and hence worth investing 2 1sts in acquiring.
Meanwhile, Fabbro has 1 season I'd say he was a demonstrable net benefit to his team at even strength (from the perspective of relGF, relxGF, & microstats) and that was in 21-22 when he spent the vast majority of his TOI (900 of his 1100min) with Roman Josi at the top of his game. Otherwise, he's been a pretty standard two-way Dman being played too high up the lineup until this past year where his struggles persisted despite playing notably less. I'm in no way confident that Fabbro is an upgrade on Kulak (even on his offside) and, therefore, don't think he's worth acquiring.
For the sake discussion, I'll grant you the terms of the Ceci cap dump. You're still trading a 1st, the difference between a 1st and 2nd (another late 2nd, value-wise), and Kulak for a pending UFA who had good numbers with Ekholm and a pending RFA who, even if you're confident he'll bounce back, just had a pretty rough season that should hurt his value. More specifically, you're trading away our ability to use those two 1sts in an acquisition for a more certain upgrade and one that either a.) has more of a playoff track record or b.) has a higher likelihood of not being exploited in the playoffs. Which brings me to my ultimate point:
Regardless of the specific value calculations, if you're spending two 1sts, you should be aiming
much higher than Alexandre Carrier and Dante Fabbro.