And yet Benning and his crew viewed them as better options than Stecher who lost his place to them.
Secondly, acting like a small, defensively struggling, "20 point" offensive Dman is hard to get is nuts. Yannik Weber types aren't expensive. Pouliot had twice as many points if you want to run on points, $1.1m. Ryan Pulock signed for $2.0m, 32 points in 68 games, he's better all around.
Are you really going to defend playing MDZ and Pouliot over Stecher and Hutton using our current management and coaching staff as your source of authority while arguing that this same team overpaid to resign him? Bold move... Illogical but bold none-the-less...
Defensively struggling you say, let's see how he ranked league-wide in defensive stats. Stecher threw 1.6 hits per game, which is in the top half, nearly top third, for defensemen who played more than 50 games last season. His shot blocking was in the bottom 25% of defensemen at 1.1 blocks per game. His giveaways were top 15% with only 27, while his takeaways were in the top 45% of the league at 22. His total shots were below average in the top 55% at 96, but this is without PP time.
None of these things are even including the much-debated advanced analytics where he also had a good showing. The fact is, Stecher is a fairly average middle pairing defenseman who should be good for around 20 points each season if given some PP time. If he keeps getting better we could see him end up as a 25-30 point two-way defender who's physical beyond what his size might suggest.
How is that not worth $2.35 million on a two-year deal?