Seems like "willing to listen to offers on their d-men except Murray/Savard" is different from "willing to move every defenseman except Murray/Savard"
I take it as listening and taking the best 1-2 offers that make sense rather than any willingness to make wholesale changes to the entire defense outside of two guys. Am I not reading it right? It seems some are taking this as an indication of 'blowing it up' - which makes little sense to me.
I'd argue that it could make perfect sense.
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If you're convinced that there is no officiating crackdown coming, and
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If you believe that the defensemen on the roster have peaked, and
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If you see a lot of guys around the league who can be targeted as UFAs who fit the idea of what the defense should look like next year, and
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If teams are willing to pay huge amounts in the trade market to get your guys,
then it makes perfect sense to blow up the entire unit. If you can get a first-rounder and a prospect for Wisniewski and then replace him with Mike Green or Lubomir Visnovsky as a UFA, then do it. If you think Tyutin is declining rapidly and you can get some great value for him and then replace him with Zbynek Michalek or Paul Martin, then do it. If someone will cough up big-time for Prout and you can replace him with Barret Jackman or Jan Hejda again, then do it.
It's possible to be extremely aggressive as the deadline approaches and completely reshape the defense fundamentally from top to bottom, and there's a good chance that it will drastically boost the team in the near future when all is said and done. There's also a good chance that the entire thing blows up and sets the franchise back by years, which would not only be devastating to the fans but ultra-devastating to everyone here who would have to still deal with me.