True Reverse Retro
Joined: Mar. 2018
Posts: 4,643
Likes: 3,048
Realistically, Nill isn't going to trade Comeau. Not one year after he signed him to a (stupidly) large contract to be a depth PK guy. And Ottawa has no need taking on an aging contract while they are trying to get younger. And with the additions of Zaitsev and Hainsey, they likely aren't in the market for another RD right now.
After Dickinson gets his $2Mish contract, the Stars will have less than $500K in cap space. They won't be able to make a trade like this because once they sign Gusev they go over the cap limit. I know you can go over by 10% during the offseason, but we have to be back under by the time the season starts. This is a list of players the Stars can "Paper Transaction" down to the minors for the first day of the season, and not risk waivers (all 3 should be on the opening night roster):
Roope Hintz - $811,667
Miro Heiskanen - $894,166
Denis Gurianov - $894,166
This gives Dallas $2.6M to move off the books for the opening day of the season.
Assuming Gusev makes $3.5M (low ball for the basis of this argument), that means between him and Dickinson, Dallas spends $5.5M, putting them at $84.53M before the season starts. Even after dropping those three players listed above to the minors for the sake of cap space, the Stars are still $500K over the salary cap, and they can't drop Hanzal down to LTIR until after day 1 of the season. The only way this trade works is if someone already on the NHL roster is going back to Vegas. Otherwise, the Stars won't be under the salary cap by the time the season begins.