I really dislike this trade specifically after seeing what Walker went for. 3.8 x 5. Could Ottawa have got him at 5 × 4.1. He can motor and defend, move the puck. Would have been a good partner with Sanderson. I don't like this direction.
To give Walker the equivalent amount of money as he'll take home in Carolina, we would've had to have paid ~4.6M per season.
There'd also the added premium of getting him to come to Canada and play for a team that's not a perennial Stanley Cup contender. To get a return phone, Staios probably would have had to start at 5x5.
And the thinking is probably that both Sanderson and Chabot are going to be the primary puck carriers on their pairings, and they wanted to partner them with what Marc Methot describes as a "cooler". Someone who doesn't need the puck and can be safe and solid defensively.
Chabot played his best hockey with Demelo. Jensen is basically Demelo. So is Zub.
And to be honest, there are still a lot of questions about this "core". So I don't blame management for going after short term veterans and not locking themselves into even more 4-5+ year deals.