Now that we know who the casualty was

So long as your bonuses don’t roll over, it’s going to be cap he’ll next season with shatty’s buyout.

Well I don't think it will be that bad there's no chance they resign Krieder for the 7x7 he apparently wants plus all their better elcs are still under contract for 1-2 years. They can probably afford to shop for 2nd line center and then fill out bottom 6 with usual cheap guys as they'll still have around 14-15M cap space

As Bluetomorrow stated Kreider won't be back, we have over 16 million coming off the cap next year
Kreider
Fast
Namestnikov
McKegg
Nieves (RFA)
Strome (RFA)
Georgiev (RFA)
and depending on the play of the 3 RFA's we may not see any of them back (Georgiev could very well be traded if he plays well, making room for Shestyerkin)
We have plenty of kids coming up, but the 2nd line center position would be something I hope we can fill with Chytil, Lias or Howden or via trade as I don't see us having the room long term to sign any UFAs since ELCs will start ending sooner than later

Don't forget to save some cap space for the Panarin buyout the blue shirts will be doing in 3 years

It will be difficult to stay competitive if you lose 6m in cap next season no matter how you slice it. Just imagine everyone else’s cap going up 2-3m and yours decreasing 3-4m. Things won’t get better as your RFA’s come up for renewal either. Having too many good players is a good problem to have though.