Poor Belleville lol

They'll still have Formenton, Norris and Abramov, and they'll have Veronneau, Davidsson and Szwarz back by then. Plus they'll be adding Christian Wolanin on the back end. This Belleville team is plenty deep, and can afford to miss those players and still be the better team on a given night.

Plus once the NHL season is over, they get the full squad for the playoffs.

Those are the top 5 players I would move.

If we acquire Gagne/Backes for cap reasons, I would also add Tierney to the chopping block

I could see that. I think it makes sense to keep Tierney for next year to keep some experience down the middle, but if they take on Gagner, by all means trade him.

I think Ottawa buys out Backes in the summer if they acquire him, so I would still keep Tierney in that scenario.

I think under a different owner yeah, but I think with Melnyk were more likely to plant Backes on the 3rd line like we have done to Anisimov

Backes Buyout would cost 1 mil per season for two seasons, but with a 4mil cap hit in year one. It would be pretty cost effective for Melnyk.