you b a s t a r d s are going to cause draft pick inflation

Isles easily decline. Ottawa has 0 reason to do this.

Two 2nds is crazy to dump Zaitsev

Ottawa has no need to dump Zaitsev - you know the cap floor exists for them, too, right?

Ladd had played 67 -combined- AHL & NHL games in the three seasons before the Islanders traded him, and he cost 2 2nds for Arizona to eat 2 seasons at $5.5M. Josh Bailey might not be playing up to the level Islanders fans want him to, but he's still scoring at a 45-50 point pace the past 3 seasons and is owed less money (2 years, $5M per). No way imaginable for the Islanders to have to pay the same price to "dump" him.

Same thing sort of applies to Kassian - if $10M of cap dump costs 2 2nds, it's hard to think that the $6.4M over the last 2 seasons of Kassian's deal would only drop the cost by a round. I think Edmonton needs to move his contract, sure, but I also think it's a small enough cap hit that other teams would be able to make it work.

Where’s Shane Wright

Look at what it cost to move Ghost and what it cost to move Strallman. Dumping cap isn’t cheap especially in the off-season

The last 6 season. The last 5 before this one was above 50. Nobody who has done that is making less than bailey.

Ghost? You mean a 2nd and a 7th for 4.5×2

The Ladd deal I'm using as reference for Bailey was also done in the off-season, so I don't think I'm too far off with what I'm saying here. My point is more that moving Josh Bailey shouldn't be viewed as a dump - Islanders have nearly $14M in cap space next year with him on the roster, with only Noah Dobson needing a big raise, so he's different from Ghost in the sense that the team doesn't desperately need the space. He's also still a fairly productive player, just that he's been a whipping boy for Islanders fans for so long that the rest of the league tends to look at him as undervalued. I think *if* the Islanders move him, it's going to be in a trade that doesn't really cost the Islanders extra assets to move him, but the return is underwhelming. I think it's much more likely they ride out the last two years of his contract and move on 2024.

I was using 3 for a direct comp to what Ladd "gave" the Islanders, but yeah - Bailey is still too productive to become a cap dump.

Its crazy, hes put up that kind of production so consistently yet his value here is so low. Is he the swiss army knife barry thinks he is? No. Would i give him 2×5 if he was a FA this summer? Also no. Does his value take a hit bc of those things? Absolutely. But he is most certainly not a cap dump. And thats before we get to the things like playoff production and veteran and leader in locker room that actual gms love and we on CF dont care about.

It doesn't make sense for Edmonton to pay to move Kassian.