I haven't seen the goligoski trade idea before, i like it

I don’t.

Marleau's family is moving back to San Jose. He wants to play closer to home. He won't re-sign in Toronto. SJ, Col LA would love this trade. Arz buys out Marleau and they sign him to a low cap number without giving up any assets...

I don't think SJ, Arizona or LA want an old guy for 6.25mil, even as a buy out, they have enough old guys and dead money on their books. (ANA wont do it, SJ has too much cap issues and cash poor ARI has dead money Hossa and Ribeiro on their books already)

Putting Kapanen in the deal sweetens the pain, but...

And overall very unrealistic to even think Marleau would want to be Orpiked, especially since hes only SUPPOSEDLY waiving his NMC to be close to his family. Why would a perennial All Star want his career to end this way and WHY would he waive his NMC to be close to his family and then return to the club in Toronto for pennies?

Technicially, if everyone were to be hoping to not be accused of cap circumvention, he'd need to make more money overall with a buyout than he would otherwise. So he'd need to make 1/3 of the 1.25M salary and more for it to be benificial to him monetarily.

I don't think he cares about making more money, in fact its hard to see if he cares about winning, if he just wants to waive his NMC in probably his last season to be near his family.

Marleau doesn;t owe the TMLF anything, and he probably wants to end his days in SJ, (who he is definitely more indebted to), but I just cant see him doing the Leafs a relatively massive favour than returning to play for them "on the cheap", just for some extra money. Especially when hes waived his NMC to be close to his family and then just return to TOR, it makes no sense.