So in other words, making this all up in my head and totally guessing what it all means……….Grier is holding a grudge that he was made to look bad because he gave Burns away for free and instead of Burns declining and being a dead weight contract for us, he was productive and a good teammate…all while being partially paid for by SJ for 3 years…
now Grier is staring at a retention spot being already being used for us and a few million dead cap already because we took Burns off his hands for what he originally offered and he is bothered by the optics of having 2 of his retention spots and even more dead cap money being tied up paying for players on our team… or ownership of SJ is forcing Griers hand because they don’t like to see that they are paying for two of the players on our team….or He doesn’t want to see the reputation build that Waddell beat him in another trade if he lets Karlsson go for market value to us..… so even if our offer is plenty reasonable for what this situation really is (not only is it a cap dump to help speed their rebuild by opening up space he can use to sign different players in his image of what he wants the team to be instead of the old SJ… instead of having to wait 4 more years to clear Karlsson off the books, who is definitely more than a zero percent chance to regress or be reinjured or have health issues again…. But this Is also doing what the player who has a full no move clause has asked for… they asked for the trade to a contender and his reputation for taking care of his players is also on the line here for future free agency and contract negotiations as he doesn’t want the rep of being someone that did a player wrong …. So he can’t just wait until the trade deadline… it feels like it has to happen this summer if it’s going to happen as he doesn’t want the whole risk of Karlsson starting the season without his request being honored and he plays worse as a result…. This is the most value he is likely going to get for this particular situation)… so even with us being on Karlssons list of teams and assuming we have made a fair offer, he can’t let us be seen as winning a trade again so early in his GM position and career…. So he is desperately trying to play the angles to sweeten the pot from anyone else on Karlssons list, especially Pitt… so even if our offer may actually be the best one again, he is just trying to get Pitt to a point where he can stomach letting Karlsson go there…
you could argue if the rumors were correct this is what he did with Meier… sure Meier may have wanted to go to NJ, but we were willing to take him without an extension and rumors being true, offered the most in the deal.. unlike Meier, Karlsson supposedly gave SJ a list of teams he would accept a trade to and we were on it…. So slightly different situation…. But might be a second situation where we offer market value and even better than the other team but more to it and the SJ GM feeling we have to overpay to make up for the last spanking he took on the Burns deal, even though no one else would have done the same last year and we simply used our cap management to best effect and helped Grier start to put his own stamp on the team by removing one of the anchor long term contracts that he inherited….
