But you keep acting like Zadorov is a bottom pairing defenseman when he is absolutely capable of playing top 4 minutes. You want a depth guy go buy Nick Seeler or Ilya Lybushkin. They will stand there block shots and punch people for you. You aren't getting anything else out of them though

I mean is a 5th "more" than just a 3rd easily?

He hasn't shown that he's a Top-4 defenseman. Any time he's given over 19 minutes for an extended period of time, he struggles. See his time in Colorado for that. He's a decent #5 who can fill in short-term in a Top-4 role, like Luke Schenn, Justin Braun, Brett Kulak, etc.

Well he's your now and probably plays on your 2nd pair. As for his time in Colorado he's not remotely the same player as he was then. His offensive contribution was non-existent and his skating was brutal. That is no-longer the case with Zadorov. Since coming to Calgary he worked with the Flames skating coach and became a very good skater and provides very solid offense now. with guys like Schenn, Braun, etc all you are getting is a defenseman that can flick the puck out of the zone. With Zadorov you are getting a guy that can start the rush, carry it up ice and into the zone quite well

And guess what? It was a 3rd round pick.

Once again. This was an early season trade and there was no retention. Every player you mentioned to me was moved at or around the deadline.
Schenn Traded Feb 28th 2023 (TDL was Mar 3rd)
Braun traded Mar 21 2022 (TDL was Mar 21st)
Kulak traded @50% Mar 21st 2022
Kulikov traded @50% Mar 3rd 2023

I don't think a 2nd+ at 50% at the deadline is unreasonable at all. Hell that's what Kulak got

Kulak got that because his cap hit was 950k.

Keep huffing that copium.

Graves was dumped because they weren’t going to protect him in expansion draft. His cap hit was reasonable.

Then that goes to show that none of your examples are even close. None of those guys were anywhere near 3.75m cap hits. Zadorov isn't at all overpaid and he will perfectly fit in where Soucey was supposed to be

Great catch I new he was a cap casualty just couldnt remember the exact reason

Bro. What? All of my examples had some variation of a 3rd round pick as the center of the value. I don't know what you're going for with this. You were wrong.

Kulak was literally one of your examples and all of them were TDL acquisitions

Holy moly my guy, because he was retained for next to league minimum on an already great contract. You're continuing to bicker just because you're mad your team didn't get your overpriced idealistic return for a player. Move on.

I'm going to believe a long-time NHL insider over random people on an online forum, yeah.

The same LeBrun who was public mouth piece for the Habs GM who told him the Habs had turned down first round picks and more Anderson.
Sure they have some inside info, but their real job is keep on writing stories for their employers.
The point I was making, is of course the Flames made an offer to Hanifan, which was refused. So what is so "inside" about that? Then the salary and term, it's in the reasonable ball park. So what was insider information that LeBrun offered? Gee, 95% of CF followers could have written the same thing.

LeBrun broke the story of the offer and the decline. That's what being an insider is. 95% of CF followers couldn't have written that.

How is the LeBrun story news? 95% of good upcoming good UFAs have a contract offer the summer before their contract is up. Because the offer was not signed....of course the Flames offer was declined.
It just isn't insider news.

Nothing you wrote made sense. "95% of good upcoming good UFAs a contract the summer before their contract is up," is an incomplete sentence.

95% of good upcoming UFAs have contracts offered to them the summer before their contract is up.

Lol what? You have no idea what you are talking about. When a player is traded at the deadline there contract and cap hit are ~80% prorated. Kulak's cap hit when he was traded was about ~190k, if Zadorov was 50% retained and moved at the deadline his cap hit would be ~375k. If you can't add a cap hit that is less than half of a league min contract idk what to tell you.

Right now Zadorov's cap hit after going to Vancouver is ~3.5M

No, because Edmonton was using LTIR (Klefbom) at the time. They had to take on the full cap hit of Kulak, hence why Montreal retained, and why Edmonton had to pay more.

Vancouver can't benefit from prorated cap hits because they're using LTIR. Trading for Zadorov at the TDL wouldn't have done anything more for them.

Contracts are still prorated because they are 80% paid off by the TDL. However if you are using LTIR you cannot accrue cap space (which is the math for reverse prorating). Edmonton instead moved a roster player making only 200k less that year as part of the package.

This is not specifically about Vancouver, any team that is not using LTIR will accrue cap space by the TDL and those teams would most likely be able to afford his 1,875,000 cap hit especially since they would be replacing a roster player with at least a 775k cap hit with him. So they would only need to accrue 1.1M at most

Just because the player may be prorated for the salary does not make them prorated for the cap hit on LTIR teams. If a team using LTIR is acquiring a player, they must be able to handle the full cap hit. This is the rule regardless of the team that is trading the player.

Acquiring Kulak at 925k vs 1.85M is the difference of another player on the roster. That's the big reason.

I am aware of how it works you literally just repeated what I said. The Kulak trade was able to be completed because Edmonton had 200k+ in cap space from their LTIR relief pool Kulak's 925k - Lagesson's 725k = 200k. They also acquired Brassard that same day. They got the cap space by placing Turris on waivers giving them 1.15M

The issue here is your entire argument is based on a team not being able to add his contract due to maximized LTIR which is just not true. Right now the only teams using LTIR that would not be able to add his deal at 50% are Tampa, Vegas, Ottawa, Edmonton, and Boston. You are also completely ignoring the idea of double retention which would give him a cap hit of 937.5k, and the 2nd retaining team would only be paying him 187.5k in real money.

You did not say that. You claimed Edmonton was using prorated cap space from the Kulak trade. "Contracts are still prorated." "Kulaks cap hit was ~190k." That is false.

I didn't repeat what you said. Kulaks cap hit was 925k. I pointed that out. Now that you were proven wrong, you're trying to change what you said when everyone can see the chat logs. Just admit you were wrong my guy.