The only way Gardiner is a Leaf next season is if his back scares everyone away from giving him a long term deal and he instead signs a bargain deal to rebuild his value when healthy. He's turning 29 and already has health issues, his long term viability is questionable at best.

I would agree, this is why this contarct is both so risky but as well has the potential to turn out great. If the contract is structured all bonuses they should be able to dump it after year 5 or 6 if he underpreforms to a team that needs to meet cap floor similar to if arizona still sucks.

Johnsson already turned down that deal back at the trade deadline. I'm assuming Kapanen did too or he would already be signed. And there's just no way Gardiner is a leaf next season. And you still haven't solved the cap problem with only a 20 man roster and only 700,000 left.

Johnsson and Kapanen aren't both signing bridge deals, (if they sign for that cheap they'll be offer sheeted in a second).

The salary dumps of Zaitsev and Brown, (to a lesser degree) are good players, but Zaitsevs contract length is bad, so think a lot of teams will not come near that.

The defense is still subpar, even with those real weak salary deals to Gardiner and Girardi.
I think all these hometown discounts: Kapanen, Johnsson, Gardner, Girardi are unrealistic.

You have no 13th forward and 7th defenseman, with no money left for one.

In other words, it cant be done.

(A big ticket guy has to go, with little coming back in salary: a Kadri, a nylander....offensive depth isn't an issue, if Kapanen and Johnsson re-sign, defense still looks weak and team toughness is meh)