Quoting: Gronk9911
Except a Norris….
Listen, 5v5 EK blows Bouchard out of the water, go look at EK on ice with every line then go look at what he was when he wasn’t on the ice, it’s like SJ iced 2 different teams.
Defensively EK is better and Offensively he’s better.
Not to mention Bouchard is sheltered with a superior partner.
You can have EK for far cheaper, giving the Oilers more money to build a deeper team. Lock another 9M D-man on the roster and see what happens if he struggles.
Bye-bye McDavid bye-bye Draisaitl
A d-man putting up 100 points is impressive, but the Norris is meant to go to the best all-around defenseman and that is not what EK was or is...not even close. EK is essentially a forward player defence.
If you want to talk 5v5 metrics...lets look at the stats:
Bouchard in 22-23: 56.95 CF%, 53.66 GF%, 57,68 xGF%, 58.24 SCF%, 59.61 HDCF%.
Karlsson in 22-23: 53.59 CF%, 50.00 GF%, 53.46 xGF%, 54.61 SCF%, 55.23 HDCF%.
Simply put, Bouchard is superior in every single advanced metric. Yes, Bouchard played fewer minutes but he is only 23 years old and isn't even in his prime, whereas Karlsson is years removed from his prime.
Also, Bouchard only played with Ekholm for the last couple months of the regular season. He played the majority of his minutes this past season with Broberg and Kulak (prior to the TDL).
Mike Grier has already said that he is not willing to retain as much money on an EK trade as you've proposed in this thread...so getting him on the books for $6 million is likely impossible.
Thus, is EK really cheaper? And even if he is, EK is going to be 37 years old when that contract ends. Is an $8-9 million (assuming ~30% retention of EK's salary) 37 year old pure offensive d-man going to help McDavid and Draisaitl stay or win a cup? Nope.
Take a look at that right hand side of the Oilers defence that you've proposed here. Karlsson, Ceci, and Desharnais. That is easily bottom 10 in the league for right hand d-men depth.
Bouchard isn't going to the reason as to why McDrai leave or not. And even if they did leave, I would rather have a young d-man in Bouchard on the team to rebuild with than a washed up, injury prone d-man in Karlsson.