Any way you slice it Viola is all about spending his money wisely lately. Tallon was largely demoted because his history and recent acquisitions didn't adhere to that philosophy. The computer boys screwed up on a few acquisitions and they were unseated. Tallon was reinstalled by Viola and we haven't seen the spending on a big ticket item since. Today adhered to that philosophy as a guy who fits the mold of a shutdown D ala McD is had for less than a million instead of $5 or $6M per. The committee understands that mandate and also understands that having small groups of foreign born players helps to attract countrymen at a reasonable price.
We are at $66M Cap now with 4 players to sign at a cost IMO of $8M. So now we are at $74M with the Cap probably a little over $80M. Pysyk is probably gone and McCoshen shuttled off to the AHL for Kiselevich is a wash, so that brings us back to $70M. There will be some shuffling of prospects with no guaranty of an NHL slot between Hunt, Borgstrom, Greco, and Tippett. Spending $6 or $7M on Kovalchuk for 3 years would shock me but I've been shocked before by what the snake oil saleman can accomplish.