One more rantish thing here: the word depth needs to be shot to the f***ing moon (preferably to Mimas or some other moon of Saturn, so further than Moon). Everyone always talks about how "you need depth to win!".
No. You need guys who are performing to AND overperforming to their current contracts. And getting rid of Mikko doesn't provide a solution to our underperforming players (RossCo, Landeskog, Nichushkin, Mittelstadt).
HF has a tendency to overemphasize things like depth, but good depth is still important. I agree with your point that you need guys performing to and overperforming their contract, but that's a sliding scale.
If you have a bottom six with a bunch Foudy's or Ben Meyers overperforming their contract, you're still only going to get so much from that player, and you're probably not going to win a Cup with depth like that.
But if you have a bottom six with Cogliano's and Helm's over performing their contracts on the 4th line, it raises the bar for what you can get out of your depth, and if you hit on the other areas of need, you have a good shot at the Cup.
Same with the D core. If you have guys like CDH or Middleton, you can only get so much. But if you have guys like Girard or Byram playing to their contract with an over performing Jack Johnson on the bottom pair, it's much different.
If you can only spend league min, you almost have to rely on getting lucky finding guys like Cogs, Helm, and JJ. If you can spend a bit more, it gives you better odds at finding a better player. You might also get the same level of play by the player playing to expectations, rather than relying on the league min guys exceeding expectations.
You don't just need depth, you need quality depth. Plus limited or no major injuries. Plus good goaltending. Plus your stars outperforming the other team's stars. Plus good special teams. Plus some luck. You need all of that to win and good depth is a part of the puzzle.
I think they should be trying to do everything they can to re-sign Mikko, but if they can't, then using his salary to spend more on the bottom six and bottom pair, would in theory help them improve the quality to their depth, if they identify the right players.