To the OP, I come in peace. I've proposed for LA, but before the recent off-season signings, a somewhat similar deal giving futures that Ottawa is lesser in and LA is greater in (mainly centers but also a replacement LHD prospect) for Chabot, like a year ago or so. This was because I saw what GM Blake said, that LA was missing a dynamic LHD (imo, to anchor the 2nd pair and to be 1LHD in any situation where we needed a top LHD). Right now we have ok to decent rookies and couple old guys, basically a bunch of barely NHL dudes.
My question to you is, do you feel the current Ottawa prospect pool is still too shallow in some parts still in order to contend for a few years? In my proposal, it was purely selfish for the Kings but at the time I saw that the Ottawa pool was very shallow in the RHD and center positions, and LA is super deep in the latter. But in my mind, I thought Ottawa, like any upcoming team, needs leadership in the form a Captain and Chabot could be that...so could Tkachuk though. The trade off would be filling the most important C position. At this point, do you still feel it is so (after several of the younger center prospects have had time to show more and after the drafting of Stutzle)? Because in a vacuum, Chabot, although older, occupies an important future role...think Chara in Boston the last five years.
BTW, I have no problem having Chabot's salary come off the books if I'm Ottawa and go below the cap floor. There are a kajillion teams willing to pay/can be held up for valuable futures to take their past signing mistakes, further deepening the well of futures for the next five years. Dorion wouldn't even need to make one call...the moment it got out that Ottawa is below the cap, other teams' GMs will be calling them.
