Hear me out

Don't think Ottawa would consider this trade. They aren't competing so adding Voracek doesn't make sense for them. Voracek is an interesting case. He's productive (although at times inconsistent), but he is over-paid, expensive, and over the age of 30. We'd have to send him to a team that is somewhat relevant, but also can afford to add him or at least have a cap dump they want to get rid of that they can add to the trade. Very few teams fit that mold.

Columbus, Carolina, Montreal, and Vancouver are the teams that come to mind. Carolina has enough talent on their roster to trade for a better asset that earns this level of money so lets take them off the list for now. Vancouver is the most interesting one. They could use his help, but cap wise it would come down to Philly taking on a bad contract like Roussel or Beagle, and also it would pretty much mean they can't bring back Markstrom.

But moral of the story to be honest those are the 4 main teams I think any Voracek trade could "realistically" happen with.

NJ gets JVR at 14.5M lmao
And that’s it
No compensation

Voracek makes no sense with the timing of Ottawa's rebuild, and even if he makes less than his cap hit, that doesn't mean the Sens are "saving money", because they are spending money they don't need to on a player who doesn't fit at all with the timing for this team.

Ghost also doesn't make very much sense for Ottawa. The Sens have offensive/puck moving LD, what they need is a legitimate top 4 defender in the style of what Marc Methot was for Ottawa years back. Right now they have nobody who plays a Defense first game that is any good. Also your proposal of Gost-Zaitsev would be an unmitigated disaster defensively.

"Taking on" Gaborik's contract isn't really incentive for Ottawa to do anything. The Sens are trying to save money through the rebuild and operate with a low overhead while they are a basement team. To that end, Gaborik give the team nearly 5mil against the cap, with a cost basically a league min contract in real money.

I'm struggling to understand how you think that Devils trade works. You want NJ to retain $15M on two players AND then take a declining asset that will put them on the hook for $21M, and they get nothing else in return... is that about the size of it?

Ottawa have to try and compete (or move in that direction) sooner or later and like I say, they had $19m on IR this season. Well, here's ~$13m that can actually feature to push the team forward. They have 2 good /great young D and a few good forwards. Plus with 2 picks in the top 5 (fair to think at least one of them makes opening night roster) it's reasonable to say they need to take a step forward and plug in some decent players around that youth.

The Sens don't need more picks for cap dumps as they have loads of picks already. They need some players who can contribute while also eating cap to make them compliant. They'll also want to do that with players whose real wage is lower than their cap hit (because Melnyk is so tight).

I could see there being other teams that were interested in Jake but for most teams his cap hit is prohibitive, for the Sens that's not the case, it's a bonus.