i find it kinda crazy that canes fans would rather hang onto orlov on this contract than move it for nothing, resign guentzel and try and find a cheaper d core option. This makes perfect sense for me (tho i dont think pesce is back), but is constnatly rejected by them.

Im intrigued what blues fans think of moving that faulk contract. he might be worth something with retention, but i agree that his value is not strong at 6.5m

They had the luxury of having a 7 million dollar D man on the third pair this year. With Nikishin coming next year and Slavin likely being re-signed, they can take a cheap one year LD rather than sign someone long term who would not have as many minutes as either of those two.

Orlov is sort of the gateway we're trying to use to bring Nikishin over as quick as we can. Not to say Orlov has been bad and that's why he's been on the 3rd line, our D core is just that deep.

Pesce for sure priced himself out of here, and there's no guarantee for Skjei to resign.

Guerin was the one who signed Foligno to his four year extension back in September, so it'd kind of be career suicide for him to try and get out of that situation now. It would be nice to not have to worry about Foligno being injured a lot, but it ain't happening. The Wild are competing now and obviously see Marcus as a vital piece to the puzzle.

I understand that, but this expensive cap hit is also preventing guentzel, an actual star player, from having room to come back.

I feel like moving orlov to open that gateway, then signing a 2-4m range dman who is slightly lower tier would be far more beneficial to the team. Sure the defense would be far worse, but keeping a star should always be top priority.

There's also some big cap coming off of the forwards. Namely Teravainen. Necas (it's sort of leaning like we'll be trading him) would be gone too. I'm curious if the Canes will do something about the KK deal because that's the worst contract by far, and if you can get that off the books, then it's genius. (A buyout this offseason would mean around 850k for 12 years, but given how the cap keeps going up, that won't be a big concern). It's really just seeing what Jarvis takes, since he could get a Necas-style bridge deal.

Waddell does really well of spending to the cap creatively. We could convince Guentzel to take a small 'discount' (imagine more in the Svechnikov range), but we'll need to see how this postseason plays out.

The Canes can sign Guentzel long term, can sign Necas long term, and even sign Jarvis long term (although Jarvis is a lot more likely to be bridged), and still fill out the rest of the roster and be cap compliant. Skjei and Pesce have both priced themselves out of Carolina, and if push comes to shove, there are a couple of options the Canes can take to clear out some cap space.

Most Canes fans will likely agree that they would rather keep Orlov to help incentivize Nikishin to come over ASAP, than move Orlov and downgrade from him and Skjei, but also risk Nikishin potentially not coming over. Orlov could have likely gone to any team he wanted on a long term deal at 4-6 mil to finish his career. Canes overpaid him slightly so they could keep the term down, as when he expires, a bunch (if not all) of his contract gets distributed around the roster.

Yes please and thank you

Too bad. The Sharks could really use someone like Marcus Foligno.