I have always maintained that I'd be fine keeping ANY two among Martin, Letang and Niskanen. We agree there. Bortuzzo needs to play in that third right defense spot, so any of the two above would work perfectly well in the top four.
Where I disagree with you is the notion that if we lose both Niskanen and Orpik for nothing it would be a bad thing. Oh sure, I would be trying to trade them now instead, in order to actually get something for them. But if we can't do that, I'm perfectly OK with losing both. That's why we keep drafting defensemen, to replace those who become either too expensive to keep (Niskanen) or less effective players AND too expensive to keep (Orpik).
Saving money by replacing expensive UFA's who are sure to sign bad contracts with top prospects produced in the system should be the way to go. That is FAR better than losing a player to waivers because we have too many bodies. That's never smart.
Actually, we agree on both points. While I have said that I would like to trade Orpik now, I have admitted both that I don't think Shero would have the balls to that, AND that it would benefit us to have the depth (in the event of injury and general depth, not necessarily because of performance) to have them both on the team for this season's playoff run. I have said, and I still feel, that we should not be "buyers" (trading futures for rentals) nor "sellers" (even trading guys like Orpik for futures, which could be addition by subtraction to get Despres/Bortuzzo in there).
That being said, what I would like to see -- which is pretty much tantamount to buyers, but just doing it in a smart way -- is to make a legitimate hockey trade. It could be a one-for-one trade like Letang or Orpik+/Despres+ for (insert player here); or it could be a 3-way deal in which we trade a guy like Orpik for, say, a 1st, and then package that 1st with our own and/or one of our prospects for a top young player.
Being pure buyers-for-rentals at the deadline doesn't work. Well, it works if you get a superstar player like Hossa or Kovalchuk. So, this year, unless we're trading for Vanek, it doesn't work. Iginla+Morrow+Murray didn't make us a winner last year. Heck, for all we know, we could have gone just as far with the guys we already had in our organization.
But making a pure hockey trade, like Craig Patrick did in 1991 and 1992 when we won our Cups, CAN really make a big difference. We have compiled some excellent young assets, and we've got some very serviceable veteran players (Orpik/Martin/Niskanen/Letang) with which we could use to make a real hockey trade. I'm not saying it's going to happen. In fact, I'm quite pessimistic about something like that happening; but that WOULD be a smart, albeit, ballsy move if we could find the right trade.
