Quoting: Salzy
Yes Shattenkirk and Klingberg will be off the Books and those are spots we are going to have to fill externally seeing as we have 0 in-house options for that. Muzzin is not worth is cap hit this year, and he surely won’t be worth that cap hit next year.
Zegras, Terry and Drysdale could easily take up 20M+ of that cap space, then we have two glaring holes at RD to be filled. Cap space goes away a lot faster than it seems likes. Not to mention it limits our ability to improve the team next offseason when we will be in a position much like Ottawa is right now.
This seems a lot to me like let’s use our cap space just because we have it without actually thinking of the success of the team.
So he plays 2 million in cap hit below his contract the next two years. This year we have the room and its no problem, Next year the Perry buyout and the John Moore recap penalty fall off, freeing another 3.6 million in cap, plus the extra million the cap goes up. We give a number or the youngins at RD a look this year and roll one of them out next year, Flip Fowler to his offhand for a year if we are desperate.
If you really want we can attach a clause to our 2nd round pick which says if we move up less than 10 or 12 spaces, the anaheim 2nd round becomes our next highest 2nd in 2023, but that just invites Toronto to lottery protect their pick, which I don't want. They've been playing with fire for a number of years running bare bones rosters that are incredibly top heavy, and now they have two massive question marks in net.
We are going to have the hole at Right D regardless, that's a problem we have to solve anyway. I don't think tying up the 5,6 in cap for one year is going to make or break our trajectory, he may play below his cap hit, but I don't see the likelihood he plays below that of a 2 million player, so we are forfeiting 3.6 for a year, which we just got back from buyout and recap penalty, making it effectively a wash.
Half the damned players in the league next year are free agents as well, and many teams wont be able to afford to resign a bunch of mid level guys, we will be able to find a warm body or two at right D until we can find someone we like, and hopefully use the Toronto 1st to draft a near NHL ready RD.