Which competing teams are going to be able to afford the likes of Tavares and Stastny if they decide to test UFA?
Lots will be able to afford Stastny IMO. Cant see him signing for over ~5-5.5M given his age and production in St. Louis. I also dont think the Blues bring him back either for what it's worth.
Tavares is a different story. But if the cap does rise to 80M it will give a lot of teams a significant break and allow some of them to pursue a Tavares type player.
Obviously NYI can afford to bring him back. Toronto could potentially, but it would mean losing all 3 of JVR, Bozak, and Komarov most likely. They'd have a lot of cap space but also will need a new contract for Nylander and Matthews/Marner the year after that.
Outside of the Islanders, I think St. Louis would actually be my next bet for where he ends up. They're a really good team already and the biggest need they have(And have had for a long time) is a true #1C. With 7M coming off the books from the Stastny deal, and potentially an extra 5M in salary cap for next year, that would give them 12M in cap just from that two spend on Tavares. No big RFAs or other UFAs to sign as well. The other possibility is the Rangers. Nash's 7.8M cap comes off the books, as does Holden and Grabner which makes up an additional 3.5M in space. It's trickier for them though as they'll have some RFAs that could be expensive. JT Miller in particular will probably be looking at a 3M or so pay raise.
All that said, if the Avs were serious about going after him not many other teams in the league could match up in terms of $$. We could go up as high as 11-12M and it wouldn't have much effect long term. The only big pay raise contract we have to worry about at least for the next 3-4 years is gonna be Rantanen. But the way I look at that is, Wilson's 4M cap hit comes off the books the same summer Rants is an RFA. So that 4M can go towards Mikko's new deal and then you add an extra 1-1.5M to the books pretty much to get him in that 6-6.5M range.
Mackinnon's deal is looking like an absolute gem right now. With all these young guys getting 9-10M+ contracts and he's sitting at just 6.3M for another 5 years after this year. As a team we really need to take advantage of that contract over the next 5 years. As crazy as it might sound given where we're at right now and more so where we were 6 months ago, I think our real window for making a push for a cup is gonna be from that 2018/19 season(Not that I think we'll be a contender next year by any means) to 2022/23, before Mack becomes a UFA.
Making playoffs this year would go a long way to attracting a guy like Tavares here as well.
