Am I missing something? There's nothing about this guy that tells me he will ever be a quality NHL defenseman, let alone a "top defender"... Undersized 22 year old, drafted in the 5th round 4 years ago, put up decent, not spectacular numbers in college... Maybe he'll be as good as DeKeyser some day if he's lucky. I'm not saying I'd be upset if we signed him, there's always room for added depth, but I'd personally rather give Russo or Hicketts a shot before this guy.
I agree that Chicago is a likely destination.
Witkowski will likely be our 12th/13th forward, so 8 defensemen and 12 forwards as it sits right now. But yeah, something has to give. We'll have a little over 900K (once Franzen is placed on LTIR) before Athanasiou is signed.