Fistfullofbeer
Moderator
1) Well that works out even better for us since all of our big contracts (except wennberg) expire in the next 2 years, so its free cap space either way
2) you aren't getting anything to take a big contract off our hands, you'll take it, or we just get the cap space a year later.
3) you have to reach the cap floor some how, you WILL have to take on other teams bad contracts and get nothing in return, its not really an option.
win-win for columbus no matter what happens, they keep all their important top 9 players, top 4 defenders and top 2 goalies no matter what.
Yes, you have to reach the cap floor. No you don't NEED to take bad contracts to get there. You can take bad contracts with a sweetener, but if not, you pass. There are going to be 30 teams in the league that can protect only 8-10 skaters and 1 goalie on their team. We will have good options.
You can use the FA market and trades as means to take on cap space if required. CBJ may not have cap issues that year but there are going to be other teams that will. With a flat cap for the next 2 years, I am pretty sure teams are going to be more than happy for us to take on salary. Do you recall what TML just gave up to unload Marleau. Sure, a 1st may have been an overpayment but with the flat cap, it may become more of the norm in the expansion draft year.
Also, lets not pretend that 48M is going to be hard to get to from a cap perspective.
SO .. yeah ... thanks for letting us know that we will be forced to take bad contracts with nothing in return. But I am pretty sure you are wrong.