Sure, I’m just saying that I think we’ve discussed this enough in the last couple months.
If you want a serious answer, here’s my perspective:
The fact that Dobson can insist upon getting a $10Mx8 year contract or threaten to take his QO or elect arbitration to send himself straight to UFA dramatically impacts his value to me. Dobson at $7.5-8M long-term has a ton more value than Dobson at $9.5-10M, which I think his numbers alone justify in this market with a rising cap. I personally don’t think Dobson is or ever will be a true #1D, and I don’t believe in paying #2 defensemen more than $8M, even very good ones. His lack of defensive acumen and physicality combined with his casual playstyle concern me.
For those reasons, I would not trade our core or potential core pieces. That includes the obvious (Celebrini, Smith) and the second tier or unproven guys (Eklund, Dickinson, #2 overall, Askarov, and maybe even Chernyshov) for him. If and only if he came with a great long-term extension like $7.5Mx8 years, then I would be willing to offer Eklund straight-across, but that isn’t going to happen. Without a good-value contract extension in place, the most I’d offer is a package of lesser assets like Musty, Bystedt, Cagnoni, Dallas 1st, SJ 2nd, Thrun, Ferraro, Graf, that sort of thing.
And I completely understand why Isles fans wouldn’t be happy with that, but that’s how trades always are for guys in Dobson’s situation. Meier got a package (Zetterlund, Mukhamadullin, 1st, 2nd), Burns got a package (Setoguchi, Coyle, 1st), and that’s the sort of thing I would offer for Dobson. Guys in his situation do not return premium assets like Isles fans want.
Ergo, I simply don’t think there’s anything left to discuss.