0-82-0 next year for lols

Yzerman can afford to be patient. He basically has immunity for the next 3 seasons or so. By then this team will be so full of skilled forwards and offensive defensemen that they'll be the envy of the league. It'll take a lot of time and bad hockey before that happens, though.

That's the hope. Only time will tell.

Seems unbelievably optimistic and, therefore, not realistic.

Wow, the NHL has really pounded down that salary cap. $8.4million will be tough

I think you are close on the salaries, except for the draft pick. Picks 1-4 will come in around 950k-975k, but it really doesn't matter in this scenario. Maybe Mantha gets closer to $7x7, but again not really mattering.

I do think they'll sign a goalie, and probably another dman. Also, I expect them to resign Ehn and Erne too. Especially being close to the cap floor, which at $84m would be 67.2m(ish).

Regarding the cap, they could always just not place Hank on LTIR if they're worried about not reaching the floor. I also think it would be beneficial to use cap space to take a couple bad contracts from other teams, along with draft picks to compensate.