Quoting: mokumboi
1- Heh. Probably should brace for disappointment.
2- None of those situations even compare to this one. Those were mild, This is DEFCON desperation.
And, uh, getting nothing for the reigning Vezina winner very much equates to having to pay to offload middle six types. Not at all sure why you think that giveaway makes your case.
Yes, Fleury was a pure cap move, as were all these mentioned, yes Vegas got nothing, they also did not have to give away anything when the entire league knew they were under the gun. I’m not sure your point here, I implied at worst they would be giving away players this deadline for nothing, that’s way different than them giving a 3rd+ to shed Smith like the post I quoted said.
The other situations were dire as well. Fleury carried a $7M hit, Stastny a $6.5M hit, Eakin a $3.85M hit, Miller a $3.875 hit (multiple years), Schmidt a $5.96M hit (multiple years), Gusev asking for $4.5M when traded. The entire league knew Vegas could not carry any of these and they got assets from every trade except Fleury, in many cases decent assets.