I disagree it’s an Immaterial cap hit. We can’t afford a nickel of dead cap if we want to re-sign the stars and have money for said trades. We wouldn’t be trading all our picks to SJ. We can trade future picks at the deadline AND have the cap to fit them in by dumping Campbell.
$5M of dead cap (or $3.75, however you want to slice it) for three years is much, much more punitive than $1.1M for one year, $1.5M for 4 years, and $2.2 for 2 years. Just because a player isn't technically bought out doesn't mean the cap space isn't dead.
Here are the three options:
1 - we roll the dice and try to have him play as backup next year (bad idea)
2 - we send him to the AHL, necessitating acquiring an NHL backup. Campbell's hit is $3.75 and a replacement goalie of any quality is probably going to be around $2M. So we've cost ourselves more cap.
3 - burn a lot of assets to trade him (I think you're underestimating what that would cost)
4 - just buy him out, replace him AND save cap $ in 24/25, 25/26 and 26/27. By the time the dreaded year 3-6 of the "dead cap" comes around, it is very possible, maybe even likely that it will cost us in the range of $1-2% of the total cap. That is the definition of immaterial.
