I also don't understand Verbeek wanting to do this trade and take on 8 million in salary knowing the Ducks aren't competing or even making the playoffs while he's still on the books.
Several reasons:
1) cap floor ... they're going to be moving Dumoulin and Fowler, that cap hit will need to be replaced
2) He's RHD vs Fowler as a LHD ... right now at least one young Ducks' dman is playing off side whenever Fowler is in. So it's better for development
3) He makes less actual money than Fowler despite a larger cap hit
4) Fowler's best use (PP, PMD, OZ starts) have been taken over by the youngsters. Trouba OTOH, the Ducks don't have a young dman who fills that particular role, Solberg is years away and Warren isn't ready nor is it clear if he ever will be.
5) Even if you move Fowler and Dumoulin, you still need a veteran dman along with Gudas, you can't just send out a bunch of kids every night on the blueline even when you're rebuilding.
He could have blocked it then.
Seems that in discussions with his wife, they were open to the possibility of Anaheim. The primary consideration, both during his exit from Winnipeg and his attempts to stay in NY, have been his wife's career. SoCal is a better place than most of the other mentioned locations for a doctor to find good work. In a months her residency is over, he was certainly gone for sure this time ... so you might as well waive the NTC to go somewhere good for her career instead of taking your chances on the waiver wire.
Everyone says, "ah well hockey players get traded, they should know that's a possibility" But when the Rangers got him they knew that one of the reasons was his wife's work ambitions. If you don't want that to be a problem in the future, only acquire players who 1) are single, or 2) have partners who are content to be housewives. They KNEW he wasn't gonna want to leave until his wife's residency was over when they signed him, that was the whole point of the initial NMC.
