Quoting: StDetroitBlueWings
If Marner was to take a significantly lower AAV, then it'd be something to consider. But agreed it's probably 12 mil and we aren't paying that. He's good, yes. But not worth the money plus giving up your top defender in the process. Imagine if Parayko had a competent partner (granted Leddy was decent this year, not great but serviceable), this defense would be a lot better. Just lacking those complementary pieces.
Just wish people would both a) realize the actual worth of Parayko and b) just stop trying to trade for him in general. It's getting old at this point
In reality what is the ideal partner for Parayko? A true 1D? The realization that i'm making at least is that Parayko is what he is, but he is tasked with an extremely difficult role in a very unrealistic circumstance. He's never going to be an above average puck mover, it's not the end of the world though because he is high end at his ability to move the puck out of the zone due to skating.
If we want to keep him in this role and have him succeed to his capabilities, you have to find a player that is capable of playing extremely difficult matchups and have a great first pass. There aren't hardly any of those in the NHL, if any. Slavin may be the only true exception to that, and i'm not entirely too sure how good of a first-passer he is due to limited viewings. Leddy has been pretty good while here to be honest. But he isn't suited for the role either. They're making it work which is great.
The best realistic scenario is you fix the absolute mess of a bottom 4 that you have. I understand the ideology of how the defense is constructed. Cave in the Parayko pair hope it bends but doesn't break, and have the Krug/Faulk pair outscore the lesser lines of opponents. What's the issue with that? Well Faulk and Krug as a pair have a lot of mishaps in the offensive zone and the defensive zone. And frankly these loaded teams that are able to roll 3 or 4 quality lines are going to eat them alive and have. If you could somehow work a fix to having a Parayko pair and a Leddy pair with a partner for Parayko that can be an above average two-way player and also control the game and having a pretty good #3 to play with Leddy and balance their usage alot more towards rolling the pairs versus strict matchup you'd see alot better results from both pairs.
But we're handcuffed because we don't have the cap structure and haven't been able to develop a high end defenseman since Dunn (Mostly due to a lack of acquiring candidates). The Sanheim trade that was shot-down by Krug would've been pretty ideal, but not perfect by any means. It's unfortunate that we didn't move towards waiving Krug and using that to sway the NTC which I figured was the main reason to hand them out like candy and being so stringent on NMCs, but here we are.
Parayko will only look good when he plays to such a high standard of being a shutdown player that it's hard to digest from the outside.