Wrong. I never said he's as good as he was in his first year. But he's still pretty fucking good.
And I told you OEL and Tavares are different cases.
Buying out OEL when you're not competitive and will now carry years of substantial dead cap is fucking stupid, no matter how much cap he was taking up on the roster.
Dumping Tavares when he's still a really good player is fucking stupid because you're not going to be able to replace him with someone as good as or better than him without (1) trading assets for said replacement, and (2) paying said replacement substantial dollars (likely $8M or more) - in each case, ONLY IF such a trade for a player is available (there is no UFA who would replace him, we know that). And then you trade assets and pay this replacement, all to create $3M in savings that you can pay to a Kerf. Like I said, fucking stupid.