Yeah Kane is gonzo. I struggle to think of a player who was a UFA who NEEDED a big payday more than Kane does. He is deeply, deeply, in debt, and can't afford to take a team friendly contract or take less on a winning team. He has to go to the highest bidder, full stop, even if that bidder is in a terrible market or has a terrible team.
If we can offload Kassian for nothing more than a draft pick, we can use his 3.2 million for Pulj and Yams re-signings. $1.6 more for each would bring them up to $2.775 M each. I don't think that is quite enough for them, but it gets you in the ball park. If you could drop Barrie for no money coming back and sign a defensive guy for around $2.-2.5, the remaining $2 million from Barrie could make up the difference in Pulj/Yams contract requirements. $3.75 Koskinen's 4.5 goes directly to Nurse, leaving $0.75 M and the cap is going up my $1 M. So that basically means we have about $1.75 to sign a goalie without having to make more moves than the ones above.
It would be really, REALLY, nice is Keith either retires or goes on LTIR for next year. You could replace him with Broberg or Niemelainen for $1 M and save $4.5 M, which is more than enough to sign a starting goalie. The other option is we run with Smith and Skinner and hope for the best.