The NTC may make this hard, but I would really much prefer a Palat trade to a Gourde trade. Whatever magic would convince Killorn to waive an NTC would hopefully work on Palat too. Palat has really not lived up to his expectations and has sort of proven himself expendable. In that case, this is what going all-in would look like, I guess, but re-signing Vasilevskiy, Cernak, Sergachev, Cirelli, Joseph, and Reaves at the end of the season would be seriously impossible.

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Palat is just too hard to move this year. Killorn would be the most probable to move considering he might waive for Boston since he has ties there and they are a contender. Matt Carle comes off the books next year. (1.83 mill) Palat can be traded next year when his NTC turns into a M-NTC.(That's another 5.3 mill off the boards) Let Reaves walk unless he takes a massive discount. (2 mill there) Trade Coburn if you have to next season as well. (There's 1.7 mill there) That's almost 11 mill! Add those RFAs current contract AAVs to that nearly 11 mill and you're at 17,381,665 to spread out to those RFAs. 8 years for Vasy - 7 mill, 3 years for Cernak - 2.75 mill, 3 years for Surge - 2.75 mill. 3 years for Joseph - 2 mill. 3 years for Cirelli - 2.8 mill. After that; the cap goes up another 2 mill or so, and Johnson comes off the books from Seattle in the 21-22 expansion draft to keep the cycle going.