The Rangers don’t need to bribe Ottawa to take Smith. His contract is exactly the kind they are looking for.

What would you say then? Rangers keep their 3rd and Ottawa gives them a 4th or a 5th?

You would have to convince Smith that Ottawa is one of "trade me to teams." Ollers probably probably can't all that cap going their way.

Correct. And they won't be trading their 1st without a significant player coming back.

Given the amount of Cap they have remaining, perhaps they take Russell off their hands entirely.

Between salary retention and the players they are acquiring, that makes the late 1st worth it.

How? Buchnevich would probably be on the third line in Edmonton and Georgiev isn't worth a pile of assets as the UFA goalie market is flooded this summer.

A) Half their Forwards are leaving in Free Agency. Buch is better than Chiasson and (at the moment) Yamamoto. They could move him to LW and find a top line spot for him.

B) They don't have enough money to bring in Georgiev off his ELC (even with Buch), but they have enough to pay for Holtby, Lehner or Markstrom?

A) The "half" of their forwards who are leaving in free agency are the bottom half, not the top half. Hence, "Buchnevich would probably be on the third line in Edmonton". They just traded for Athanasiou to play LW with McDavid, they aren't going to spend a bunch of assets duplicating that move. Kassian has carved out the RW job on McDavid's line. The other first line of Nuge-Draisaitl-Yamamoto is the best line in the league, no way Buchnevich eclipses either of those wingers. So third line it is.

B) I didn't say anything about money, I said "Georgiev isn't worth a pile of assets as the UFA goalie market is flooded this summer." Why trade prime assets (Puljujarvi, 1st round pick) for Georgiev when you can pick up a UFA 1B for just money?

If Buchnevich isn't to your liking, that's fine. But if Georgiev keeps playing like he has, he'll be better (and slightly less expensive than a lesser UFA). Perhaps a lesser deal for just him would work. Went with the package deal due to the Oilers lack of 2nd's.