here goes again. I have made a couple assumptions throughout this, but I think I was more than fair.
Lets assume the cap will be $80 million (all reports put it between $78-82 million, so lets use an average). Using an $80 million cap, we have ~$25 million in cap space available.
Here are the NHL players signed for the 2018-19 season (16 total):
FORWARDS (8)
Taylor Hall
Travis Zajac
Kyle Palmieri
Marcus Johansson
Brian Boyle
Nico Hischier
Pavel Zacha
Jesper Bratt
DEFENSEMAN (6)
Andy Greene
Sami Vatanen
Damon Severson
Ben Lovejoy
Will Butcher
Mirco Mueller
GOALIES (2)
Cory Schneider
Keith Kinkaid
We have 4 "notable" RFAs this summer:
Miles Wood
Stefan Noesen
Blake Coleman
Steve Santini
I think a very fair estimate for what these 4 players will earn will be in the ~$6 million range combined. That leaves us with ~$19 million in remaining space and brings our roster up to 20 players. Three roster slots available. We can assume we will likely have 1-2 scrubs like Hayes or Stafford (or someone like McLeod from within) signed for league minimum to be an extra. So lets say ~$17 million (being conservative) in space for 1 roster slot. Lets HYPOTHETICALLY say we signed John Tavares to $10 million/year. This leaves us with $7 million remaining.
After the 2018-19 season, the following comes off of the salary cap:
Brian Boyle ($2.75 million)
Ben Lovejoy ($2.67 million)
Marcus Johansson ($4.58 million)
Keith Kinkaid ($1.25 million)
~$11.25 million total coming off the books next offseason. Now, I realize that we will likely want Johansson back (assuming he has a decent year) and we will need to bring in a backup goalie, but thats another decent chunk of change opening up. But keep in mind that Butcher and Zacha (and Mueller if he progresses) will need at least minimal raises. Lets assume that this additional $11.25 million cancels out when you consider raises/extensions to the players listed previously. This is probably being way conservative, but still. This leaves us still with ~$7 million in space.
After the 19-20 season is when Shero will have work to do. Hall, Vatanen, Hischier, and Bratt need new contracts. However, Andy Greene's $5 million drops off after 19-20. You can probably almost totally cover the raises to Hall/Vatanen with Greene's expiring $$...it will probably be a bit more than that, but it will be close. Its tough to guesstimate on what Nico/Bratt combined will get, but remember we still have the cushion listed previously. We also have not taken into account any raises to the cap, which are almost surely going to happen.
tl:dr- we are in amazing shape cap wise and can absolutely afford to add at least one "big" contract to the fold.