Ericsson is a usable player on a middle or bottom pairing. Bickell is garbage and would not be useful for the Wings in pretty much any capacity. I don't care if Bickells got a shorter deal.
The Wings aren't in any kind of cap crunch (outside of this self made 66M cap this year to keep bonuses in line and all that). Dumping Ericsson for the sake of dumping Ericsson and getting a garbage winger on a team full of good wingers, who don't have enough spaces as it is, is stupid asset management.
Quincey has been a useful player in on that second pair, too. Marchenko's looked good this year, Smith has found his game lately, and I'd be pretty comfortable with XO on that third pairing right now. After Green, Kronwall, and Dekeyser, I think we could chuck our D into a hat and on any given night get a decent game out of whoever we pulled out. Okay, maybe not Kindl... .
And we are in a bit of a cap crunch. You can say it's self made, but it's still there, and Holland's sticking to it because he's looking at a real cap crunch next year. At that point, I think Bickell would be easier to move off the roster entirely if we eat a bit of the salary - if it came to that.
I think people are overreacting a little bit to the severity of E's deal. It's not great, obviously, but as long as he's mostly upright it's not bad enough that we need to start absorbing bad contracts to get away from it.
Market value he's probably a 3-3.5 guy. Being overpaid 750k-1.25m isn't the end of the world.
I'd bet on Andersson not being back before Helm and/or Miller. Unless he totally breaks down Miller's a lock to come back. If Helm will sign for 2ish per he'll be back. Andersson's gone.
Agree about Andersson being the first out the door, and I expect Miller to be here for life. I think we'll see him take a cheaper deal just to make it happen. I think Helm could get caught in a cap crunch, and will sign elsewhere. We have around $57m committed to next year, and needing to re-sign Pulkkinen, Dekeyser, Sheahan, and Mrazek. $10m among those four? Maybe, probably. So, we're at $67m and only 18 guys signed. If the cap goes up, we're fine. If it doesn't, Helm will stand a good chance of being forced out.