With Byram included it's a massive no, but Zadorov instead of Byram makes this interesting, even though it's a
huge ask to fit Price into the cap structure long term.
Just for fun I played around with the capfriendly Armchair-GM using this deal as a basis, and I came up with the following moves, based on what the roster would look like for the 2021-22 season:
- Trade Grubauer + Zadorov + 2020 1st to Montreal for Carey Price.
- Replaced UFA's Wilson/Nieto/Calvert/Bellemare with Newhook/Kovalenko/Kaut/Bowers on ELC's.
- Replaced Cole/Connauton/Barberio with Byram/Timmins.
- Resigned Rantanen ($9.6m), Landeskog ($8.5m), Burakovsky ($3.5m), Jost ($3,5m), Makar ($8m), Timmins ($4m), Rosén ($1.2m), Graves ($1.2m), and Francouz ($2,5m) to reasonable deals.
Those moves put the cap hit at $86.9m, which is clearly too high (barring a $5.5m rise in the cap by 2021).
With that in mind, although the projected 2021-22 lineup below looks pretty awesome, it does seem like a bit of a pipe-dream due to the cap.
Landeskog --- Mackinnon ---- Rantanen
Burakovsky ---- Kadri --------- Donskoi
Jost ----------- Newhook ------- Compher
Kovalenko ----- Bowers -------- Kaut
Girard --- Makar
Byram --- Johnson
Graves --- Timmins
Rosén
Price
Francouz
That said, 2021 is the year of the expansion draft, and getting out of Johnson's $6m at that stage could perhaps be a realistic option, so I decided to include a Johnson trade in my roster scenario.
Losing Johnson (and resigning Connauton instead, at the same cap-hit as his current contract) puts the total cap at $82.2m, which should be comfortably within the cap given that it is expected to rise above that by 2021. That leaves the defense as follows:
Girard --- Makar
Byram --- Timmins
Graves --- Connauton
Rosén
So, with those moves on defense acquiring Price seems to be a move that could feasibly work for the 2021-22 season at least.
However, looking even further ahead, 2022 will see Kadri hit UFA, and Bowers, Kaut, and Byram all probably needing to be resigned at significant raises after their ELC's.
A year later in 2023 the cap situation gets even worse, with Mackinnon, Donskoi, Compher, and probably Newhook up for renewals. At which stage there would be 3 years left of then-36 year old Price's contract at $10.5m , which would force us to lose
at least another really good player or two.
It's also worth noting that this projection depends on quite a few prospects on ELC's actually taking the step up, which is a big assumption at this stage.
Needless to say, as nice as it would be to acquire Carey Price , it just doesn't work for Colorado long-term cap-wise. We'd be much better off stacking the D and riding it out with Grubauer (or another non-All-star calibre goalie).
