Staal's signed at the same cap number for one more year? I'd take Staal all day. Beast possession player. RNH is only moderately more productive.
Would the Canes seriously be willing to move Staal for cap space?
No. There's planning for the future, but that's insanity.
The Canes are $7 million below the cap *floor* right now. They need to squirrel away about $12-14 million for RFA deals for Slavin/Pesce/Hanifin/TVR for 18-19, but they've only got $26 million on the books so far for that year.
Even if they want to still be a cap *floor* team at that point, they've still got $16-17 million to play with AFTER signing all the defensemen, which will be needed to sign maybe 6 forwards and a d-man, but at that point guys like Saarela, Roy, Gauthier, Wallmark, Elynuik, Kuokkanen, Zykov, Foegele, Bean, Fleury, Carrick, McKeown are coming in to fill, I'm guessing, most of those lineup spots on cheap contracts.
And there's nothing dictating they be a floor team, save for the state of the rebuild. They were never a floor team until the 14-15 season, they had an imposed budget below the cap but that was a number that was always still well above the floor.
Maybe in 3-4 years when those players are taking over the core of the team, then you trade Jordan Staal, but right now he's pretty central to the team's ability to be competitive, and they're probably good enough to make the playoffs this year.