Quoting: ggha777
There will be no money to sign Suzuki, Romanov, and Caufield without dismantling our team
Next year, Chiarot and Kulak contracts expire and they can likely be replaced with players on ELC's (Norlinder, Guhle, Harris, Brook, etc.) Alzners buyout penalty changes from $1.958M to $0.833M. Lehkonen's contract is just a one year qualifying offer, Teasdale or Ylonen can be brought up to replace him. Cheap depth can be brought in to replace Perry and Getzlaf and we can go with a 21 man roster. Along with $575k in current cap space and the RFA's contract expirations that leaves $9.41M to go between Suzuki, Evans, and Romanov without making any other moves. So let's say $7M × 8 for Suzuki, $2M × 2 for Romanov then there is ~$0.41M for Evans left... so not enough (unless they go with a 20 man roster). MTL can exceed the cap to defend against any offersheets... but realistically MTL can get someone to take the final year of Byron's contract.
I would actually look into trading Gallagher because:
1. Caufield will be their #1RW
2. Toffoli is cheaper and can play RW
3. Anderson is cheaper, younger, bigger, and can have more of an impact.
4. Evans will likely move to RW to accommodate Poehling.
Moving Gallagher would ensure there is enough room to sign Caufield, then Byron's contract will expire, and Allen's at which point Primeau will be prices back up cheaper, alzners buyout will be finished... big savings to lockup the young core... and then the cap will be going up and there will be a flow of prospects coming in on ELC's from the pool Bergevin has built.