Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
But let's say he says he's not signing, "go ahead and trade me". He is a UFA so the return would be mediocre, and it would have to come with cap coming back. And if so, they probably wouldn't have had room for the Tkachuk trade. Or even if they did, they wouldn't have had room to sign Kadri.
It's impossible to say how it would have played out, but it certainly would have changed what did happen. In the end, they got cap space for him, and they used it well.
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Its not about trading him to get a useless 6th round pick, it allows the team to move on and do other things. They had to operate with with a 10.5 million cap charge not knowing what is going to happen with him.
I also think he cost himself money by waiting till the last second to announce he is going to free agency. If more teams knew prior to his announcement I am sure some others would have made moves to open up cap space, kind of like when Brad Richards hit the market.
The post by Squiggs pretty much confirms what some of us are saying, he had no intention of signing and he knew he was gone he just strung along the negotiations. His reasons for leaving don't matter that's a right he earned, but there was no reason to drag out negotiations with us if his heart was set on leaving years ago. If people read what Lewis wrote in that special letter to the fans, it says he began thinking about playing closer to home back in 2018 after his dads health scare.