NJD decided Ryan Graves wasn’t worth 4.5 million x 6 years to them (probably even less as historically players will take less to not have to move their family)

And unless you’re suggesting Graves took a discount to play in Pittsburgh, it’s likely that almost all of the other teams in the NHL decided the same.

Your general thought-process is wrong. I'm not sure why you're asking weird questions. I completely stated earlier that Graves has not been a good fit. Every situation with a player is different on why they may be on the outs with their respective teams, but you're treating this like some kind of math equation and that's now how this goes down.

Yes, the clause affects things, but it only limits the teams they can negotiate with and the leverage they have in the type of return they can get, which is why I stated in a situation like with Graves, the likely scenario is this...

1) They get a low return on a team who will take him, i.e. maybe they get a 4th.
2) They may have to take a contract back with a player in a similar situation, i.e. let's say VAN is interested. You could see a trade, maybe even straight up for Mikheyev.

Now, as i stated a few times already, if Graves just completely year 2 of his contract and he's been bad in both his years of this contract? Then yes, the Pens would likely either have to tack on a pick/prospect to move him or possibly retain.

But humour me.

Name me a team with the cap space, the need at LD, that wouldn’t be 1 of the 12 teams on graves NTC, that wants graves at 4.5 mill that he wouldn’t sign with in the offseason at said 4.5.

Your logic here is 100% wrong. NJ didn't decide Graves wasn't worth that. NJ decided to prioritize getting their young dmen in the lineup rather than signing an older player long-term who would block their place in the lineup, which was the right thing to do.

I could see you taking another cap dump back for graves yes.

Again, you’ve failed to answer this simple question. If a team wanted graves at 4.5 million+, why did they not sign graves when he was available as an unrestricted free agent at said price?

No, that’s what they did with Severson. There was a logjam there with Nemec Casey Hamilton and Marino.

On the left side there was no real logjam. They just decided graves wasn’t worth the money over that term.

If NJD wanted graves at 4.5 million they’d have signed graves at 4.5 million

Wrong. Being a NJD fan doesn't mean you know more than I do on this, by the way. Graves and Severson were gone to make room, but also free up cash to spend on Meier.

I didn't fail to answer anything. I gave you the answer in another reply.

I have yet to see an answer. You said something inaccurate about NJD having a logjam on the left. But again, that logjam still exists and so NJD would still not want graves at 4.5.

Which team wanted graves at 4.5 and why didn’t they just sign him?

Here's how it played out...

The Devils have a bevy of young dmen ready to start making their way in. Graves wanted a long-term contract and NJ didn't want to commit the time to a 2nd pairing dman when they have all these guys getting ready to make the jump.

The other factors are Bratt and Meier. They prioritized spending their money on key forwards.

Please though, continue to tell me how I'm not answering your questions.

@digibb10

Also, you have a Siegenthaler, Bahl and Hughes on the left. Young dmen. Signing Graves would have blocked your younger guys from coming up. This isn't rocket science.

If graves was worth 4.5 million in our eyes we’d have kept him.

For example

Siegs-Hamilton
Graves-Marino
Luke-Bahl (Luke started the year on the right side, Nemec was meant to stay in the AHL this year)

And kept Yegor instead of bringing in toffoli.

We didn’t think Graves was worth 4.5 million.

The problem with gravy was by the end of the year Bahl (not a top elite level prospect) was playing BETTER than graves. Hence, graves was not worth 4.5 million.

Bahl isn’t a top priority dman who we needed to save a spot for.

Even now NJD is targeting a veteran dman such as Hanifin. Again, if we thought graves was worth the money we’d have kept him and either shipped out Bahl, or not bought Miller.