the thing is you DON'T want to resign a 31 year old muzzin in a salary raise, so in the first place why trade young valuable assets for 1 year and a half of muzzin when we are not even equiped to contend this year neither next year. We want to get younger and better. you achieve that by drafting and trading older valuable assets to team that are actually trying to win right now for their young non-ready NHL prospect with great potential.
Easy example: Pacioretty trade, the trade would have been REALY good even if Tatar would have end up a cap dumb, He now becomes the type of player you trade to contenders to get younger, add petry to that, add byron to that in a year-ish, shaw etc