First point. I'm not sure which player(s) you are referring to? Very few players Benning acquired are "good players for their cap hit". Maybe Motte? But he does have a defined role. Vrbata? He also has a defined role. Can't really think of any other "good players for their cap hit".
Second point. Chicago was so desperate they traded us a pick for a pending UFA Beauvillier, who carried a $4m cap hit and somehow managed only 2 goals in 22 games with us prior to the trade. SJ's top goal scorer and top point getter on their starting lineup are both 32 years old. I'm sure either one of them will trade a 3rd or something for Hog next summer, and those are just the first 2 teams that popped into my head. Washington, Montreal, Boston, etc can all use a 24 year old that can score 15-20 goals from their bottom 6, just quickly glancing at their roster on Dailyfaceoff.com right now. And what is his trade value right now "at his peak" anyways? I read in the previous pages that we might get a 2nd for him, so do we really lose much value waiting 1 year? Most people want to include him as a piece for an upgrade, but we already established that for this season, we can't really get a better "bang for bucks" player. Might as well just use him as a self-rental and reassess next summer.
As for future roster construction, I think maybe you guys are much more optimistic about our prospects than I am. I don't see any of Pod, Bains, Sasson, Raty, etc ever scoring 20 even strength goals from 4th line deployments and PP2 time. I don't even see any of them being NHL regular at this point, although I sure hope they prove me wrong! Aside from Lekk, we don't really have any young, offensive players coming up. I don't think we can risk losing the only proven one we have, at least not until we absolutely have to.
Maybe I should have said "not bad cap hit". When I said that I was kind of referring specifically to Pearson, who I thought was a bad decision. Everyone who I discussed it with always counter-argued that his contract was great for what he delivered. For me that simply didn't matter though when what we really needed was a winger for Bo. We already had tonnes of guys like Motte, Podkolzin, Highmore, Dickinson, Hoglander, Podkolzin, Garland all capable of playing a third line role, and all sans Garland making low(ish) salaries. That's where guys like Hoglander and Podkolzin should be getting opportunities. Add Bailey, Chiasson, Richardson, Lammikko, Dries, Dowling, Lockwood, and Petan. That's a big collection of shite even though you could say none are really a bad contract. That was kind of the point, you shouldn't keep a player (Pearson) simply because they are a good value. They have to fit your roster, and currently it looks like Joshua and Garland are playing where Hoglander would be best suited to develop. ** Sorry, that was long winded. **
