I agree we should definitely try to trade him. I just have a gut feeling we won''t. Like you said he's an A-captain and seems to be to Blash what Cleary was to Babcock.
He also has an NTC where he can block 10 teams. Not the end of the world, but considering only about 16-18 teams will be serious contenders for the playoffs come TDL he can block over half of them, and limit us to trading with teams who don't have the cap space to take him even at 50% retained.
And I really think it behooves him to do this. Once he's traded to a deeper team his ice time is going to drop from 18-20 minutes a night to 14-16. Hurting his next contract.