I'm ready to trade Eberle this offseason. For a while i thought he was snake bitten, just having a bad stretch.
It's been going on for too long though. I don't know what it is, but he's just lost it. I thought maybe he'd step up in the playoffs, take himself to another level, or atleast up to the level he's shown in the past. But he hasn't. He's playing with more intensity, as he should, but everyone else is as well. And he's still not producing. He's not getting goals. He can create all the chances he wants, but without the finish they're all for nothing.
It's plainly obvious as for the past 20 games he's gone to his backhand in most of his opportunities. It's a sign that he has lost all confidence in his wrister. Even though he misses the net on 90% of his backhands, he still turns to them.
His only strength was his shot, he essentially had a $6M shot.
You don't pay 20 goal wingers $6M. There are going to be plenty available this offseason that will give us more dimensions at half the cost.
The only problem now is how to you unload a $6M 20-goal scorer that isn't big or physical and average defensively.
His ability to create speed through the neutral zone, clean zone entries (when he's not going off-side), his ability to read off of line-mates to create high quality scoring chances, his improving defensive game...He is still one of the league's top players at his position.
People get tunnel-visioned on players when they aren't scoring.
So to answer that question, you don't unload him because he's nowhere near being a salary dump.