Sorry if I'm late on this one, but has anyone answered why Walman wasn't simply waived? We see now that the cap space need wasn't time sensitive, and it seems like we could have just took our time and kept the 2nd. So did we miss some rule or something...?
Yzerman claims that he tried to trade him for less and a second was the cost to move him. Supposedly, no one would have claimed him.
We did need to move a D man if only for the roster spot and supposedly we may have had that money ear-marked for another move that didn't work out. If we consider Walman a pure cap dump, paying a second to move out 3.4 mil over 2 years does seem like fair cost. That's what similar contracts are going for. It will be useful for giving max term contracts to Seider and Raymond.
I still hate the trade, I think Yzerman and the league completely misevaluated Walman. To me, he was our second best D-third if Edvinsson is playing- and had his deficiencies magnified by being overburdened with his deployment. To me, if we were going to move a D man, any of the other members of the cult of mediocrity would have been a better choice. To me, I'd feel a hell of a lot better seeing Walman-Seider instead of Chiarot-Seider on our forecasted roster.
But apparently that's not how Yzerman and the other GMs see things. Everyone has evaluated that he sucks and was a pure cap dump. That's why he was moved, and why it cost a second to do it.