Can't buyout a 35+ contract and can't send Marleau down. Not saying it's not a bad move, but reality is, he's on the roster.

What do you mean? They did it last year with Orpik. He was 36 or 37. They just take the full cap hit but he does not have to be on the roster.

He means that you don't get any cap-benefits from buying out a 35+ deal like we would buying out a normal deal...like EJ's contract, which can be bought out before the expansion draft if he won't waive his NTC and we'd only have to eat 2M on our books (for 4 years) rather than the full 6M (for 2 years) that we'd have to if he were on a 35+ contract.

Although this doesn't really matter for us since there's just 1 year left on Marleau's deal and we should still be able to squeeze everyone in, even with his dead-money on the books. Granted I'm just assuming that Marleau doesn't have enough left in the tank to play a role in our up-tempo scheme, because I haven't paid much attention to him this year. If I'm mistaken on that and he's worth keeping on the roster, then that just helps our depth as AJG could go back to the Eagles until any injuries give him his next opportunity...the way Meloche would be waiting to pounce on that 3rd pairing spot on the right.