Low Key Retool

It does seem DeMelo has earned himself a pretty nice pay raise this offseason. But it’s so possible that he could revert back to before this year and disappoint ppl at that 4 mil price tag

Yeah, Dillon's probably the safer option. The Caps have a decent amount of experience with guys who seemed like they'd broken out as top 4 defensemen only to go back to being marginal players (Kempny, Jensen, Gudas). It's so tough to evaluate stay-at-home D and try to separate how much is their talent vs their system/partner.

I agree, it’s pretty hard to decipher. That’s what I’ve found out too as I’ve been trying to familiarize myself with all the lower end UFA defenseman.
Bc as a Red Wings fan, the Patrik Nemeth signing last offseason (2 years @ 3 mil per) has worked out really nicely for us, his game is similar to Dillion’s, and my feeling is that Yzerman’s long game strategy all along is to flip him at the next years trade deadline to gain more draft assets for our rebuild. I think Nemeth will return a very similar price as Dillion’s deadline price. And I think this is still the strategy, rinse and repeat. So these type of defenseman in this tier, price, and age group are on our radar. But other than dollars, all we can really offer a UFA right now is maybe a larger opportunity than he possibly has to maybe push his career forward.
If I took a guess on it today, I think a couple UFA guys pass on us and we end up with Erik Gustaffson hoping it’s lightning in a bottle again.

Great post. System and partners/linemates def matters. Context