What's the plan after this tho?

Luke and Holtz need contracts.

Probably paying to dump palat, might need to move marino. Losing toffoli for free
In this case we'd probably have to either bridge mercer or convince him to sign cheaper.

Long term has us down a 1st at least, (palat+marino cancel out), and the team probably worse than
Hughes Meier Toffoli
Nico Bratt Holtz
Mercer Haula Palat
Mcleod ____ ______
Hughes Marino
Siegs Hamilton
Bahl Nemec

I don’t think we have dire cap constraints. Would be able solve if ran into trouble as there is little dead money on ledger.

They need physical, hitters, Tanev or Zadorov would be better. hanifin good offensive but Sus defense. you just want him cuz he butt buddies with Fitzy. i want Size,physical on the back end.

In my mind it would end up being
Bahl+Marino vs Hanafin+Casey.

We'd trade Bahl+Marino and that would approximately cover the trade cost of hanafin.

Pretty even tbh.
This year:
Hanafin-Hughes
Bahl-Marino
vs
Bahl-Marino
Hughes-Other rental

next:
Hanafin-Hughes
Bahl-Nemec
vs
Hughes-Marino
Bahl-Nemec
2 years
Hughes-Nemec
Hanafin-Casey
vs
Hughes-Nemec
Bahl-Marino

If hanafin would agree to sign at 6 mill or something a tiny bit under i'd do it I think. Same logic I had with bringing severson back . If he's willing to take a discount I'll do it.

Also I'm not sure I'd give Mercer that contract at this point.
That's in the Hagel/Terry/Boldy area and I don't think mercer is quite that. Especially since I think we'd have 4 full years of RFA control.

If we use the Chytil deal as a ballpark there that's 17.75 over 4. Mercer here is 47.25 over 7. I don't think Mercer becomes a 10 mill AAV guy over the next 4 years.

G O A L I E
O
A
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I
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Hitters is not the right remedy at all. Unless you want to play with puck less (which is not how team has been set up). Our strength is our transition game, but we have been rather pedestrian at even strength this year as d-zone exit success rate has dropped considerably. Adding a dman who can get puck in hands if Hughes, Bratt, Nico.

I don’t think we would have to cut two dmen to fit one.

Siegs - Ham
Luke - Marino
Hanifin - Nemec
Bahl

Is a playoff caliber blueline. If we need a to move a winger to achieve it, so be it. Can always find wingers.

based on what you have here that leaves us 12.85 mill (90.5 mill cap) to pay Bahl, Luke, Holtz, a goalie (at the very least we'll need a 1B/quality backup), and 3 depth forwards+whatever overages Luke/Nemec/Holtz incur

At the very least that's 3 mill for the 3 depth guys+overages (minus 800k for every player we go short)
so 9 mill for Bahl Luke Holtz and a goalie

Holtz is 3+ on a bridge
Bahl is 2+
Luke is 8+ long term
any decent goalie is 2-3+

You can:
Trade palat and bahl giving up another 1st in addition to what we paid for hanafin.
Sign Luke to a bridge deal, and go dirt cheap at goalie/trade bahl or holtz
or trade marino and bahl for actual assets and let casey play 3RD

I'd rather not pay mercer that much in all honesty. He appears to potentially be a winger in our system and we're paying him like a top line winger/2C despite having I think 4 years of RFA control

I wouldn't touch that Hanifin extension with a ten-foot pole. That's just asking for trouble.
Not too against the idea of bringing Hanifin in purely as a rental piece (but even then I'd rather keep the 1st!).

Also, I wouldn't worry about the strength of the Devils D corps for next season.
Luke and Bahl will have developed even further and Nemec should most definitely be a significant upgrade over Smith / Miller.
And with Vilén and Hatakka coming along very nicely I see no need whatsoever to bring in a defenseman from outside the organization onto the roster.