23-24

I don't think you need to buy out Hakanpaa.

He is pretty cheap, has only one year left on his contract after this season, and I'm pretty confident that you would find numerous GM out there wanting a big body like him.

With how bad he's played this year, I wouldn't be surprised if potential suitors would want Dallas to throw in a late round pick in order to pay for a team taking his contract. A buy out gets rid of just about his entire contract's cap hit in 23-24 and means Dallas doesn't have to worry about paying someone to take him. I'll gladly pay the $666,667 in cap space for the 24-25 season for the $1.3M in savings I'm getting in 23-24

At 1,5M$ for only one year, Nill would find a trade partner pretty fast and would not have to give assets. This unless Nill thinks he is worth more than a 6 or 7 round pick.

Hell, he is bad but he is big, play on the PK and is a good candidate for 6-7 D on a roster with some NHL ewxperience under his belt.

I disagree. He's a big body, but he's not an NHL caliber defenseman at the level he's played at. There are a half dozen "big" defensemen hitting free agency this offseason that I'd rather have than Hakanpaa, and just about all of them would cost less. If I'm a team looking for a big body #6 or #7, I'm not interested in Hakanpaa. I'm interested in a free agent

Well DeBoer disagree with you since he never got healthy scratch this year while Miller + Lundkvist + Hanley were.

You underestimate the appeal of size-block shot-"defensive play" for NHL's GM.

Don't get me wrong, I would gladly buy him out or put him in the stands with Suter and and play Hanley and/or Harley instead. But the assumption you made was that they would need to buy him out since there would be no trade partners. And on that specific subject, I disagree.