Canes pass, for obvious reasons

What are those "obvious reasons"?

KK is a 23 year old middle six C that still has top 6 upside. He's got great offensive and defensive upside, AND you want retention. You gotta start with probably a 2nd if you want KK, with retention? You cannot afford that. Plus, the Canes have better prospects to play on the 3rd pair than POJ

Probably not the reason the poster you're replying to is thinking, but the Canes save more against the cap by buying out Kotkaniemi than if they retain this much on him.

They do, but over 12 years. In this case, it is only 6 years and you get a decent 24-year old defenseman. Also, total money is cheaper in this case too.

Acciari isn't needed and would only block guys like Lambert, Chibrikov and Ford from moving up. If this was the only return available, I'd just buyout Schmidt. WPG shouldn't be giving up assets to move him anyway.

kk needs a hockey trade, they won't retain. It's too long.

Acciari is a 4th liner. None of the guys you mentioned should be on the 4th. Kupari really hasnt done much and a 4th isnt crazy value. Moving nearly $4M can be huge to re-sign some key guys.

I get that. My thought was more if they were thinking of buying him out, a deal with retention might be better.

yeah I mean I can get that. But I don't think either is a great option. A buyout is obviously 12 years, which is like no way in hell a team wants to carry that even under 1 mil cap hit for 12 years.
But does a team want to use a retention spot for 6 years? No way. Not to dump a player for sure not even getting anything back for it really.

signing KK was one of those dreadful hockey moves that a team has to endure in some way or another for years. Which is kind of funny because it really gives CAR a lesson about trying to revenge a team over an RFA. Sometimes you just have to realize it's only business and let it go. They are learning that punishment right now.

It's like when the penguins signed Hornqvist to that awful 5 year deal.
It was a bad idea from the start.
It got rolled into Matheson which was a salvageable situation it was bad but not horrible. He was actually somewhat useful. But got rolled again into Petry and then Rolled again into EK.

Every step along the way, you are hoping to salvage something out of it, but most likely you are spinning tires trying to just get through it.

The mistake the penguins made is they kept sinking good assets into bad. Instead of just accepting it and finding ways to lesson the burden in each moved rather than cough up Marino and than 1st and 2nd round draft picks to just spin tires. Yeah they got a better player in EK in the end.... but it's impossible to run 2 offensive 1RD on a team, it doesn't work. They are really stuck with a broken D core because of that for the next 3 years.

So you look at CAR, that KK contract is awful, they aren't going to buy it out over 12 years, they aren't going to retain on it for 6 years. They should look to flip it for a relatively just as bad contract.
Be it with the penguins or someone else. Try to shave a year or two off their mistake, and in 2-3 years be done with it maybe.

It's the act that people think they can "fix" something that is severely broken that just digs people further in. Acceptance of reality is the first key choice.
But usually there are no good options and teams don't win in dealing with contracts this bad.