Mike Green is a disaster. We do NOT need him on this team.
They can always buy out Ryan in 2 years if we wind up taking on his salary.
(Outsider coming in peace...)
If Vegas isn't going to exceed the cap ceiling over the next two seasons, which they probably won't, a creative way around Ryan's contract would be giving up David Clarkson. A team has to exceed the cap ceiling by the entirety of a contract to get it all back via LTIR, so because VGK aren't likely to do that in the next two seasons, sending Clarkson to Ottawa would mean VGK would have a +2M/+2M/+7.25M/+7.25M cap consequence over the next four seasons.
The sunk cost of David Clarkson makes Ryan's added cap very low for at least the first two seasons. In season 3, there's the potential for a lockout, which if it lasts a full season will buy Vegas a year to deal with Ryan while eating up a year of his contract. So potentially Vegas would only have one nasty year of Ryan's contract where they are adding considerable cap as a result of Ryan's inclusion in the Karlsson deal.
Ottawa would be likely to take Clarkson if he is insured, because it would mean his real salary owed would be a bit under 1M. The Senators are not a cap ceiling team, so the cap hit would be superficial, they won't care about any LTIR benefits.
It's why I was so confident that Karlsson+Ryan would go to VGK at the deadline when the rumours first dropped. It was a perfect storm. Vegas had the assets, they had the long term cap space, and they were having an amazing season that would justify making a big splash like adding Karlsson.
Taking on 7.25M (7.5M real money) a season for four seasons is a huge obligation, but this is a situation where Vegas can offer Ottawa something that almost no other team can. Not only that, if Vegas' ownership is already expecting to Spend 70-80 million a year on player salary, taking on Ryan creates a scenario where Vegas can offer something to Ottawa that is much much more valuable to Ottawa than it hurts Vegas. It's like an ace up Vegas' sleeve (sorry had to), in that even if another team came out with a package Ottawa likes even a little bit better, I have a hard time imagining they'd take it over Vegas' package that includes Vegas taking on Ryan.