Quoting: RedWing9119
Funny how I said I wasn't interested in your math and you shared it anyway. The Wings got a fourth round pick for 250,000 in salary. You do the math.
Mostly because I find your stubbornness amusing. For the record, Detroit retained $1.0625M of Savard's deal, not $250,000. Now that you have asked me to do the math...
I took the opportunity to graph out six known points of data that we have available to us:
$0 in retained salary means no additional pick is exchanged, and thus 0,0 must be a point in our graph (this is more of a mathematical thing but it makes sense).
The TBL 4th Detroit got in exchange for retaining $1.0625M is currently 126th overall, DPV of 0.91
I'm approximating the 2022 BUF 5th SJS got for retaining $1.125M to be 129th overall, DPV of 0.90
The TOR 4th SJS got in exchange for retaining $1.375M is currently 123rd overall, DPV of 0.92
The NYR 2nd Detroit got in exchange for Marc Staal's $3.2M is currently 48th overall, DPV of 4.48
TOR sent its 2020 1st to dump the cap hit*** of Marleau in exchange for what was supposed to be the #18 pick, DPV of 16.87, and would have been save for the play-in round. Circumstance aside, making this distinction is important.
I must add as a caveat, I have assumed the values of the AHL players San Jose moved as part of this deal to be worth the same as the last pick in the draft (DPV = 0.44). This is the lowest value we have available to correlate to these players, and despite how little they're worth, they still have value.
This results in the 2nd order polynomial trendline equation of Pick Value = (4E-13)*salary^2 + (3E-7)*salary , which mathematically behaves similarly to the graph of draft pick values: higher salary equals higher pick value. This equation has an R-squared value of 0.9976, suggesting that it's following the data we're working with *very* closely.
I have to admit that in order for the trade to work as I've proposed, the Red Wings will buy Neal out. If he's such a drag as you're assuming, this is probably the most optimal choice for both clubs as he'd only be in the way of a prospect possibly playing for the Red Wings. If we consider the business end of things, it's the more cash-effective option for the Red Wings too. Not buying Neal out pushes the DPV up to around 25: this makes less sense for Olympia Holdings and the Oilers. The extra $2.5M is an expense the Red Wings' organization doesn't need, and Edmonton doesn't have the horses to accommodate that kind of dump.
Thus, if I test this equation against the Red Wings buying out a retained Neal's remaining $7.5M ($5M spread over 4 years), that formula spits out a value of 11.5. There's a minor discrepancy with my more linear value of 10.5, but only to the tune of 1.00 (approximately Pick #113).
The solution here is I add another low-end prospect to the trade and we're done with it all. The Oilers are currently shy on picks, so it's that or a 2023 pick. Your choice. It's nowhere near as exorbitant a price as you're making it out to be.
I do however, appreciate you keeping me honest. A linear comparison across Staal and Neal's salaries was too simplistic of an approach and this does add a more "realistic" approach.