You are aware that trades are allowed right?

I mean who would they trade, most of their contracts are hard to trade with the age of the player, especially Pietrangelo. The UFA market is terrible as well. I think that their trades at the Deadline were half-done to replace the players they would lose in the offseason. Hanfin for Martinez and Hertl for Marchessault. Karlsson is likely the only one they could trade but I don't see that happening.

They can trade one or more of Adin Hill, Brayden McNabb, Shea Theodore, Zach Whitecloud, or even a forward like Nick Roy to gain cap space. Thompson looks like the may be ready to take the starter role here, and Korczak may be ready for the bottom pairing too. There are teams that would take those players.

Adin Hill is likely staying because of how weak the UFA goalie market is, and the fact that his cap hit is smaller than a guy that could replace him. Shea Theodore is the same thing. His low cap hit is irreplaceable for a ppg defenceman on a cap-strapped team. Also the same story with McNabb. Whitecloud and Hague are likely the only expendable guys and that would only open up about 5 million in space (if they choose to trade both, which is unlikely)

“The fact that his cap hit is smaller than the guy who could replace him”. That’s not true. This goaltending market is trash for starting goalies, I can admit that, but if Logan Thompson is going to be the starter, you can get a reliable backup for him. Some good backup goalies you could grab are Kaapo Kahkonen, Cam Talbot, Kevin Lankinen, Casey DeSmith, Laurent Brossoit, Alex Nedeljkovic, Anthony Stolarz, Alex Wedgewood, and David Rittich.

Theodore, and McNabb are two very good defence men that you would rather not trade, however, you could get a good bottom pair defence man to cover for McNabb. For Theodore, you could get some good pieces, and who knows if they will have the cap to resign him with Hertl making 6.75M, Eichel making 10M, Stone making 9.5M, Hanifin making 7.35M, and Pietrangelo making 8.8M. I could be wrong, but I doubt they would have the amount of cap space it would take to get Theodore back. It’s about cutting your losses, while also getting assets back in a trade, instead of losing him for free, that’s if you want the cap to sign other guys too.

They have many many options and a seriously exquisite think tank.

Theodore, Karlsson, Hague, Roy, whitecloud would be very sought after