Definitely not enough for Cirelli. I don't think their even trading him

If Cirelli is that cheap why would they trade him?

Anthony Cirelli is already miles better then what Casey Mittelstadt will ever be, No way Tampa takes that offer. Only way Cirelli leaves Tampa is through an offer sheet that Brisebois obviously can't match.

Anthony Cirelli is already miles better then what Casey Mittelstadt will ever be, No way Tampa takes that offer. Only way Cirelli leaves Tampa is through an offer sheet that Brisebois obviously can't match.

Obviously Cirelli is better than Middlestadt that is not in debate. There is still potential for Middlestadt to be a top 9 forward, granted that is very much in doubt at this point. Thinking that Brisbebois will want to keep Sergachev over Cirelli and there will be know way to sign both. Any number of teams could push an offer sheet for 5 Xs 6340000 and Tamp would then have to let Sergachev, Cernak and Killorn go just to match. The compensation if they don't match is less than the offer here from Buffalo. If someone like Detroit wants to offer up a couple of first round picks or Zadina and seiders then Tampa will likely take that deal, but I doubt they would want to part with that for a center who will likely top out at 60 - 65 points.

my hope is Fast would be able to get a similar contract from NY and take it =\

Tampa easily declines this offer. They can also quite easily match an OS on one in the 6 range and keep both, could definitely mean losing Cernak though. Likely won't matter as Cirelli will sign a 3 year bridge around 4 and Serg will bridge around 5. There may be enough room for Cernak, or maybe he is traded, but there are quite a few ways to keep Cirelli and Sergachev.

Whats wrong with you Sabres fans?

So I guess my math is fuzzy here. Cap will be 81.5 next year and Tampa is 76.2 right now. If they match Cirelli at 6.3 that brings them to 82.5 then 5 to Segachev puts them at 87.5. That would be with 17 men on the roster. I will go down the rabbit hole a little bit and say they have 6 players at the league minimum of 700,000 bringing their cap # to 91.7. How exactly will they easily shed 10 + million in cap? That would require trading 3 forwards at least 2 of which have full no move clauses or moving McDonaughs contract (who also has a full no move clause) and a forward all the while having every player coming back be at the league minimum.

Cirelli won't be taking an OS, he's made it very clear he's not interested investing Tampa and certainly not for Buffalo. Even if he did, Tampa moves out Killorn, Paquette and one of Gourde/Johnson to save ~11 million. Coburn is also likely either traded to save Tampa an additional 1.7, or bought out to save almost 1.1. Since you're just assuming Cirelli takes an OS to.a bottom feeder, I'll make the assumption that is far more likely to happen, that there's either a cbo or Tampa gets a player to waive. A far more realistic Tampa lineup comes in just under a flat cap with 22 players
Stamkos-Point-Kucherov
Johnson-Cirelli-Palat
Coleman-Stephens-Goodrow/Barre-Boulet
Maroon/Volkov-Verhaeghe-Goodrow/Joseph
Volkov/Joseph as the 13th

Hedman-Rutta
McD-Cernak
Serg-Foote
Masin/Schenn etc as depth #7

Vasi
McE
With Cirelli, Serg and Cernak taking their bridges in total between 11 and 11.5 and fairly inexpensive 1 or 2 year deals for Rutta,Stephens, Verhaeghe, etc, Tampa does make it work. There is a chance Maroon doesn't return and if Brisebois has to spend a little extra on a couple players maybe Cernak gets moved, leading to Serg back on the right and Tampa getting a cheap depth guy for 3LD. There will have to be some fine tuning by JBB and his team to make all the #'s work, but this roster template is very possible for next season and does come in just below or just above the 81.5 cap.

Your are also assuming that 2 of 3 gourde, paquette and johnson waive their NMC and that there are teams they are willing to waive to go to that will want to take those contracts knowing they will have to have those players on their protected lists in the expansion draft. Lots of moving parts possibly Brisebois makes it happen but I feel it is much more likely that either cirelli or sergachev will need to be moved along with killorn. I am not suggesting that Buffalo is the most likely landing spot for Cirelli. Much more likely he would sign an offer sheet with a team that is consistently better. As far as taxes go that bridges the gap slightly to high tax teams, roughly keeps 400k more on a 4 million aav contract but it would not nearly make up a 2 million gap in aav.

Yes, I am making some assumptions on how I believe Tampa makes it work. However, given the past few years in Tampa in regards to working deals with their players and keeping basically all the key guys they have wanted, I don't see any reason that this can't not won't continue. Getting one of Gourde or Johnson to waive the ntc is not out of the question if there's no cbo or other form of cap relief. They could be interested in a more prominent role elsewhere, they may see the writing on the wall and want since extra control over where they go vs risking Seattle in the ED or submitting a large trade list(Johnson after next season, Gourde the year after). Paquette also has no ntc and Killorn's is an m-ntc.

Most Tampa fans realize Cernak may be a cap casualty if it comes to it, but Tampa will not let either their current rising 2C or one of the better young dmen in the game go unless a team offers a severe overpayment in trade or the even slimmer chance that both a team highly overpays on an OS and they accept. Most contenders don't have that kind of space anyway(aside from maybe Colorado) and as you mentioned, there is still some tax benefit in Tampa vs most locations. I still say it's at most a 5% chance either Serg or Cirelli is somewhere else next year. Brisebois is also known as a pretty good numbers guy and was working as Yzerman's #2 pretty much the whole time, so until he screws it up and doesn't keep one of the key players, I'll still.have some faith in him.

Not doubting that Brisebois is a good numbers guy and that he had a strong plan to keep the core together with an expected cap increase of 3-5 million this year. Now that has all gone out the window. Has to move at least one additional contract than what he was planning prior and get all 3 RFA's to accept severe below market contracts. Could easily see Vegas, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal put in an offer sheet on either player