Nik the Trik said:Bozak is an interesting case. I keep going back and forth on him. Earlier I made the case that his season had moved his contract from one of those anchors you'd move in a second if you could to maybe actually being a pretty good value. He's produced at roughly a 50 pts/82 pace for five straight years now and this year proved that wasn't just a function of being joined at the hip. A 50 point center who's not awful defensively and can win face-offs shouldn't just be a salary dump, right? He should have some real value. Not 1st round pick value but 2nd at least.
But the more and more I think about it the harder time I have seeing him move. Bozak's production can't be entirely linked to Kessel any more but it probably can be linked to getting a ton of PP time. He's also got a bit of an injury history at this point. Is there a team out there who's really going to look at Bozak as a desirable option as a top 2 C? Is there a team who won't think they have better ways of spending 4.2 million?
I don't know, I think that's going to be a tough sell without taking back some bad money.
My plan for Bozak is basically package him with the Pittsburgh pick and see if there's any teams at all in the teens that would move down for it. Maybe there won't be any takers, but teams like Carolina (drafting 13th) and Detroit (16th) seem to have a hole at centre with their losses of Staal and Datsyuk. Maybe they bite.