I’d do that. Sens don’t.

The reason I think the Sens would go for it, is because of Melnyk. He wants them to get rid of Ryan and Backes would be a good solution for them as a cheap team trying to reach the cap floor.

I agree because if you retain that much on Ryan, hes not a negative player anymore. At 4 mill, hed get value back and I dont think theres enough coming back for taking Backes anywyas

They are already at the floor and the trade is not nearly enough compensation for taking Backes and retaining salary on Ryan.

Well that’s the point. Only way you move Ryan is to retain enough to get his contract down to his actual worth or take on a similar bad contract of shorter length,

They don’t do it because after buying out Backes and retaining on Ryan they have quite a bit of dead cap space for 4 years. The return for taking Backes in this scenario is just about right considering Boston is not dumping even half his cap hit and adding a year. The return for taking Backes decreases with cap space coming back. If they are dumping all 6m, no salary in return, then the price goes up. It’s more the retention that is the deal breaker.