No, I am talking about guys like Leblanc, Tinordi, McCarron, Beaulieu, Scherbak, etc that could have been used to shore up Carey Price's prime years but were held until they busted.
The logic is the D is already pretty full, extremely young, and there are guys who will hold waiver ineligibility much longer than Mailloux in the system and don't have his poor defending in their weaknesses. Trading Mailloux for an equal forward prospect or in a package for a top 6 forward would be a great move. I don't mean trade him for a pick.
Barron losing his waiver ineligibility takes away his trade value. Mailloux doesn't have the defensive game to be more than a bottom pairing guy at ES in the NHL, and his puck skills are behind Hutson long term so he won't even get first PP time. It would be smart to get peak value, but I'm sure we'll try the magic bean route for the hundredth time.
It's one of those things where if you start with six #1 D and two play on the bottom pairing, those two are going to regress, you're not going to win 82 games because you have 6 #1 D. Ice time is essential for both development and continuous success, and we don't have enough of it to share; a guy like Kovacevic is perfect as a #6/7. Just look at a guy like Nate Schmidt who has literally played everywhere in the lineup in his career and performed basically as expected in each role. He was on the top pairing of a team that went to the finals and then the conference finals. Before that he was a bottom pairing guy and after that he was a bottom pairing guy. When he got put in a top 4 role after that he produced like a top 4 dman. The teams that had this top pairing guy on the bottom pairing did not have massive success or embarrassment of riches.
That's just my opinion from watching hockey though. I don't think the idea of hording prospects or keeping "name value" guys in every single roster spot works out in real life. Mailloux's obviously got higher upside than a Konyshukov or an Engstrom, but they also have very little trade value and play safer games that would project well even in a bottom pairing role.