Did you outline who you think CAR protects? Did I miss that? OH! Sorry, within the trade. My bad. I did miss it!

Name a big name UFA who will want to sign with an expansion team when there are teams (like Carolina) who can pay as much as Seattle can and still offer the UFA's a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup.

There's no certainty big UFAs will want to sign in Seattle

Oh, Carolina has $81.5M in free cap space right now??? Didn't think so. No Team, not even DET or OTT has more cap space than Seattle. As for the UFAs. Vegas has been dominant. All Francis needs to do is point at their success. As for specifics...I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was Dougie Hamilton. Seattle can legit offer him north of $10M per year. He's already left a team once because they could pay him what he thought he was owed.

IF Dougie wants to win. He should take a discount to stay with CAR. I do ultimately agree with that.

They'll get Hall on a 2 year deal at extremely high dollar. They may royally suck, but with their lucky charm, they'll get Shane Wright and Connor Bedard in two straight drafts. Profit!

Seattle doesn't have 81.5 mil in cap, they signed Luke Henman

🤣🤣

That would be the most Taylor Hall thing ever. But I cannot see him leaving Boston. Even if he signs at below market value to stay there.

To a minor league deal...they have $81.5M in cap.

He's technically on their roster. They have 80.7 mil right now

You know CapFriendly has this info right?



He is a non-roster player

They haven't assigned him to being non-roster yet. Capfriendly openly admit to guessing during the offseason

Kinda like you're guessing that he is on the roster as well. If they choose to play him they will have 80.7 mil in cap, but you're acting like his signing locks the team into playing him at the NHL level

He was signed to a deal, and they haven't assigned him anywhere. Meaning, he's on the roster. Does he stay on the roster? Probably not. But he is right now.

His deal starts in the 21-22 season. They can't assign him even if they wanted to

Ok but if they sign Dougie Hamilton then that becomes their selection from Carolina and I don’t think Carolina is overly upset. Would they prefer Hamilton over Skjei? Absolutely, but if Seattle doesn’t take Skjei then they likely have trouble signing Hamilton anyway

Canes have enough space for Hamilton without Seattle taking Skjei. Seattle likely takes Fast (or Foegele depending on if they choose to protect Fast over Foegele, which IMO is unlikely) if they don't take Skjei, and almost every single one of the near-NHL-ready prospects in our farm system are forwards. Svech is coming off a down year and is therefore likely to be bridged to a pact similar to Laine's.

I just don’t see it being possible. I mean 8 million is minimum what Hamilton will want and this acgm leaves the canes with only 1 million in space. Skjei is over 1 million more cap hit then MP.

I went extremely generous on a couple of contracts here to illustrate the kind of space that we have. Nedeljkovic isn't likely to get nearly as much I put in there, mainly because I find that they're more likely to pursue either a 1 or 3 year deal. Mrazek's deal is also somewhat of a luxury, and can potentially be replaced by a reclamation project somewhere in UFA. Also, if you have to save more, you can let Martinook go in UFA and use that farm system to full effect, if necessary.

I see where you're going with this if SEA doesn't take Hammy then you're suggesting they'd automatically take Skjei. I think Seattle has other Dmen they can grab as UFAs or like you mentioned...Gio, Dumba, Graves, etc... Seattle IMO will avoid Skjei unless they get something with him. There are simply too mant dmen available. Especially with UFAs like Oleksiak Martinez...Hamilton.

The only problem would be getting the UFAs to sign. It will be interesting. I think id rather have Skjei than Gio. There’s just so many factors. Will the wild give Seattle a haul to not select Dumba? Will UFAs sign without wanting a ridiculous price tag? Will Colorado send Seattle compensation to not select Graves? I honestly can’t wait for this expansion draft lol.

But out of the ones expected right now, I’d say Dumba and Graves are 1 and 2 on the list for sure.