I hate to break it to you .... he's probably going to be on the ice come playoff time.
But if all the defensemen are healthy, there's a chance he could be a scratch.
You're right about who's a better player, but do we want to trade a 20-goal scorer -- a man in our top 6 forwards-- to do it? I wouldn't, and I do understand how important getting Meier is. We have enough assets to find another way and still beat Carolina's offer.
Good two-way players are valuable and he's already good. And he's 21 so there could be a lot of growth. Plus, the idea is to get better, and trading Mercer for Timo Meier doesn't really achieve that in a significant way.
A couple names I've mentioned in previous posts are Ivan Barbashev and James Van Riemsdyk. The latter could help the Devils' power play and Barbashev could strengthen the bottom six.
I guess Minnesota felt that it was worth the money to spend $1.8 million for a 4th round pick. Is that the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket? Maybe the 4th round pick hits big and it only costs less than $2 million?
There's probably a chart somewhere showing what draft picks are worth.