Quoting: pharrow
teams can move cap if they want to. It's not even worth arguing that.
Where? That's what I want to know.
Examples:
Vancouver has Stetcher, Tanev, Markstrom and Tofolli has FAs..... 2 of them are gone due to cap constraints
Edmonton: Athanasiou, Bear FAs, with 2 lines to fill out. They need to move Russell.
Calgary: cannot afford either Hamonic or Brodie unless Gillies or Parsons is backing up Rittich. Even then, only one of 2 realistically can be resigned.
Toronto: we all know.
NYR: made there moves to free up cap space at the deadline, with Strome, Deagelo and Lemieux as FAs. Capped out after that.
NYI: in worse shape than Toronto with a myriad of bad contracts and Barzal and Pullock to resign.
Nashville: they can try and move Bonino or Turris, but aftet filling out the bottom defense pairomg, capped out.
St. Louis: praying Steen retires, or they have a tough choice to make if they wanna keep Pietrangelo. Bozak maybe gets moved, but see above for trade partners.
Tampa: about $12 million they need to dump to resign Sergachev and Cirelli. But, notice how fast the trade partners are drying up here?
Chicago: cap penalties have then tight.....
Starting to see the trend right?
Point is players may move, but it's gonna be dollar for dollar. There are 5 teams on total that could take on a contract. That is not enough to free up the kind of space you are talking about. This does not, nor will not, free up space to spend large money on a UFA.