God I hope the Canucks don't trade down to 19. I'd reject this offer but I'm not sure they would. I just think the guy they'd be getting at 11 would be far superior to anyone at 19 but that's just me.

As for your free agents I'll just quickly take a stab at a few.

Compher no way he signs for less then 4-5 years and it will likely be north of 5 million for him.
Bunting again at his age signs a longer term deal with someone.
O'Reilly will likely want to sign with a contender regardless of money.
Graves again because of age won't sign a short term deal.

Trade aside because we're all allowed our own opinions and have good reasons to believe them.

On the UFAs. Who's going to offer that kind of money to Compher, Bunting, Barbashev, Kaner, ROR, Tarasenko. It's just a lot of UFAs and not a ton of teams with cap available. Hard to argue any 1 specific case. Just someone's going to get left out, no?

Canucks pass, we don't view Garland as a cap dump, going to have to pay more to move up to 11

From your list of UFA's the only guys I think the Hawks would target are Domi, Bunting and Drouin. Maybe AA if they miss out on everyone else. I'd add Killorn to the list as well.

Like the trade too. Seems like a good deal for both sides

Thank you for your opinions all very smart things said.

They do though. They want his contract out. Same with boeser.

The following teams have more then 10 million in cap space. Panthers, Rangers, Jets, Avs, Sharks, Predators, CBJ, Sabres, Sens, Pens, Kraken, Hurricanes, Coyotes, Wings, Devils, Ducks, and Hawks. Another 2 teams have over 9 million.

There is also the very real possibility of the NHL and Players association working out a deal to allow the cap to go up more then expected. Teams may have a couple million more then expected which would be huge.

I think the Hawks will add a piece or two to help insulate Bedard so he has legit NHLers to play with but nothing more then that.

Doesn't mean he is a cap dump. Bjorkstrand was a cap casualty, but he still got positive value back... Columbus was also in a much worse situation than the Canucks as they were ACTUALLY over the cap limit. The Canucks aren't once Poolman and Pearson are on LTIR

They want to trade them yes but not as pure cap dumps meaning they aren't going to do it unless they get real value back for those players. There are so many trades in here where people throw a couple late picks at the Canucks and get Boeser. It's ridiculous. Fun fact.... Boeser has just as many points as Jamie Benn over the past 5 years so people thinking he's vastly overpaid maybe don't realize how consistent of an offensive player he is. Yes he's overpaid at 6.65 but not as much as people think.

If the NHL raises the cap. That's a different story and would open things up. Sure.

Not all those teams listed can realistically afford the guys I mentioned either. COL has 6 forwards signed and I doubt they're ready to give up on Landy. Rangers can't hardly afford their own RFAs. They're a team looking to dump cap to accommodate those RFAs...if possible. NJD does have cap, but LARGE contracts to give to RFAs too. Most things I've read have them trying to trade cap away. Yotes just don't have the cash. I could see them taking on a TMyers contract after VAN pays his bonus in Sept. Seems like a win/win for those two teams.

Agreed that the Hawks will make some NHL acquisitions.

If I were Davidson, I'd decline the trade... and take full advantage of the situation to squeeze as many assets out of VAN as possible

They're not going to pay to dump either player.