Joined: Nov. 2017
Posts: 3,257
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The thing for Chicago is there are a lot of moving parts that can be dissected in our cap space. First and foremost, as most people talk about, Maatta and Smith have relatively cheap buyouts at 680k and 1.083 M respectively, and thats only if absolutely nobody wants them, and De Haan was still playing like a solid top 4 D-man this season before his injury, so Im sure somebody would bite on him as well. The next thing in the line is Toews, Kane, and Keith all expire on their contracts at the same time Debrincat and likely Strome if he takes a bridge deal too, so they would not be due for big raises until we get a bit of cap off the books, and the Seabs comes off the very next year. We are likely able to sign Crawford again, but it should not be for more than 2 seasons, as Dach, Boqvist, Mitchell, and Nylander would all come off their contracts a year or 2 before that point, so if we can get 2 of the 4 to take bridge deals for smaller cap, we should theoretically be in the clear. However, if Saad wants a raise, thats probably a no go and he might get traded at the deadline next year if we arent contending just to recoup some value and not let him walk for nothing. So like I said, lotta moving parts there, but its not unrealistic to say we dont have to pay a fortune to dump seabs