Over $7.3M for three seasons of Weise and MacDonald is prolly not the way to build a winner. It seems like us fans want Vegas to only take our team's crappy contracts in cap dumps without any regard that McPhee actually wants to be a competitive team and not an Arizona.

Deleted.

Isles will get a better deal for Halak. Probably a 3rd or 4th unless Garth wants lower level prospects back instead

a 3rd or 4th, they send him down for free on waivers and nobody wanted him

what are you even talking about? Nobody wanted him earlier this year you'd be lucky to get a 6th

Hey, gotta give good players to get good players. We can't assume Morin pans out yet. Manson is a very good #4, and plays on the right where we are most thin. The alternative is we're playing 2-3 rookie defensemen at a time. Cringe. Or, we're still icing Andrew MacDonald in a top 4 role. Double cringe.

Vegas Deal. Obviously knew I'd get heat for this one. Seriously, go use the Expansion Draft tool on this site and see how it works. MacDonald getting third pairing minutes in Vegas isn't going to harm them. They're not in a cap crunch, and won't be for three seasons. They're much better off taking a few assets for contracts like his. Trading Vegas an RFA prospect out of contract is also very good value, and I can't emphasize this enough: They can only select 10 such players in the expansion draft. That's not enough to build a robust prospect pool. Vegas is starving for picks and prospects. If Vegas wants to build a winner, that's the surest road. Better get started as soon as possible.

Vecchione is not signing for entry level dollars? He hasn't done anything in the NHL yet. No ELC, true, but he's just RFA.

Look at Klingberg as your comp on the Ghost deal; I didn't pull the number out of the sky. Ghost is still subject to 3 more RFA years, and he is not presently arbitration eligible. So if they're doing a long-term deal, it's in the 4-5 range. Not over. Maybe the term is 6 instead of 8, but nevertheless a long-term deal in the 4s is easily doable.

Do please notice the 1.8+ mil in cap space. It's not really a problem here. Even if it were a problem, then find a cheaper option than the Halak deal. He's not cheap at 4.5; the only attractive item there is the 1 year term and his experience.

You can build a winning team by drafting and developing talent. Chasing UFAs and expansion draft leftovers isn't going to get it done. If McPhee has 0 prospects and only 7 picks in a given draft year, wouldn't you think he'd want to load up on those assets? How can he do it without a roster from which to trade value? This isn't rocket science.

Arizona obviously has financial problems and a horrid relationship with their arena being owned by Glendale. Not a fair comp at all.

Here's some math for you. 73 million in cap / 23 players = 3.174 million per player. 2x3.174=6.348 million for 2. So MacDonald and Weiss are just less than 1 million over the average cost of 2 players on an NHL roster spent to the cap. Not a big deal for Vegas unless you instead expect them to load up in free agency with several 8, 9 or 10 million dollar cap hit players within the next few years on those long-term deals that always age so well.

Deleted.

We have no reason to trade cap when we are perfectly fine.

Absolutely nowhere did I say that. I think it's a playoff roster, and that's an improvement. Anything can happen once you get there.

You are just assuming Morin pans out to become Manson. You might be right. You might be wrong. There's risk associated with that. Eliminating that risk is the gain.

Totally agreed. Never said we had to trade cap this year. This was just a demonstration of how that could go should Hexy wheel and deal with McPhee.