All of this is irrelevant. If the Sens give Karlsson an offer and he refuses, teams brought in looking to acquire him through trade will be able to offer him what he's looking for. That's what is very possible to happen. Sens come at Karlsson with a $10.5M per season contract. He says he wants 11.5 - 12, and the sens refuse to match. Sens then agree on principal trade terms with a team, but the destination team demands to speak with Newport sports before the trade happens to get the contract worked out and agreed to in principal. That way Karlsson decides what team has the best offer, and he can essentially decide his price / destination.
OR
He waits out the entire season not signing and go to free agency to get essentially the same deal to what's likely the same team. Just ...because? It's not like there won't be teams lining up with blanks checks for him...
There won't be teams lining up with blank cheques? For the best defenseman in the world.
Right, your rebuttal for the first two paragraphs is that they are irrelevant, care to take a look at the rest? or are all 5 paragraphs are just totally pointless because the situation is improbable? Then you type the bolded, which is 100% conjecture and speculation - there is no guarantee that teams brought in WILL be able to do anything. You realize that there are only nine teams in the league with more than 6-million in cap space, right? Which teams are being brought in through trade? Because most of the teams with the Cap space are probably on his No-Trade List......
(for reference - the three highest paid (cap hit [salary]) Defensemen are - PK Subban (9M [10]), Brent Burns (8M [10]), Hedman (7.875M [8]). You are assuming that the sens think 10.5 is reasonable. Dorion came forward and said - "If we offer him a fair contract and he doesn't want to sign here, then we will have to look at other options". You have no idea what they consider fair - maybe fair to them is not 10.5-12 million, maybe it is 9.5. Maybe Dorion says, well Burns, a tremendous offensive defensemen, has a Norris and he only earns 8 million - why should we pay Karlsson and extra 31%?) - would you not go to free agency if the Sens offered you 10m and you could earn 12 somewhere else? If the answer is no, then you just left $16 million on the table...that's a lot of money.
Here is my analysis of teams with cap space in excess of 6million, if you are going to disagree with them - give me some real reasons instead of saying that it is totally irrelevant followed by a generality.
ASSUMING these teams get a KARLSSON whom is SIGNED in the trade:
ARI - Let's not even waste our time, most likely on his NTC
COL - Deal was already done to bring in Duchene, Karlsson would have been part of this deal if he was willing to go there. Now the price is Rantanen/Barrie/+ (COL will never do this)
MTL - Not likely to lock up 26 million + in Price/Weber/Karlsson. Can't see Ottawa being interested in anything Montreal has except maybe Drouin, and no one in the league wants the Weber/Price contracts.
EDM - Gets the chance to play with McDavid. Ask is going to start at Draisaitl whom we just signed for 8.5M. We can't sign Karlsson for 11.5, have McDavid at 12.5, and have Draisaitl at 8.5. So Drai goes, but then what was the logic in signing him in the first place. We also need to add. Not going to happen with McDavid's contract starting next year.
BUF - Disaster of an organization (like the Oilers), they need a goalie and D. This trade likely starts at Risto and gets more and more expensive. Can't really see how BUF dodges his NTC.
FLA - All of their core is locked up for a while, so they need to find 5 million in cap space to sign Karlsson, Yandle + picks isn't gonna get it done. They will never trade Trochek or Barkov. That leaves Ekblad ++
NJD - What would Ottawa want? Butcher? New Jersey has 7 pending UFA's at the end of next season, do they risk these players to sign Karlsson? Does Maroon+Severson+Grabner+a pick get this trade done? I doubt it.
VEG - Karlsson for Karlsson ++?
CAR - One of only two teams with the cap space (15M) to just straight up sign Karlsson. From Carolinas perspective, if it looks like Karlsson will make UFA, they could send one of their premium guys somewhere else for a good return, avoid re-upping and then go for Karlsson with 11.5M. Don't think Ottawa wants Faulk.
Ask starts at Hanifin or Slavin and gets more expensive.
2018 - 3UFA/6RFA (lindholm, Nordstrom, Hanifin)
2018 - 2UFA (one has a NTC) the other is Skinner, 3RFA (Aho, TT).
If I'm Carolina and Karlsson somehow doesn't have me on a NTC - Why would I trade Slavin, Teravainen + picks for a guy that I might be able to just straight up offer 11.5 if he makes it to UFA, I also need a goalie more than a Dman. Ottawa will be calling teams and saying, "hey we want to ship Karlsson" (the other GM will think to himself - "why would you ship the guy? because you can't sign him?"), so the other GM will offer Lindholm, Rask, 2019 first, 2020 2nd. Ottawa will counter with Slavin, Rask, 2019 1st, 2018 2nd. Carolina will decline. Ottawa will go around the table to the other teams that aren't on his NTC and as you get higher up in the standings, you get less likely to find a deal. Contending teams are not dumping their pipeline for Karlsson because they are already contenders. They need to keep replacing their depth players since they already have a core in place. Teams that are cap strapped need to lose like 3 or 4 roster players to make a deal with Karlsson work, and teams that are cap strapped are already trying to make the playoffs. You can't lose 3 or 4 impact players for Karlsson, at least not at the prices that people on these trade boards are asking.
IF we go around the league and just assume that Ottawa wouldn't trade him within division (because it would be suicide), and then the bottom 10 teams are on his NTC - who is going to break up their team for Karlsson at 11M? Pens are out, Chi out (they won't trade Kane and Ottawa shouldn't want Seabrook), Minnesota has D, Washington can't afford him without dumping cap, Cgy needs scoring so they could maybe try but then they need to offload their D, Sharks could make a run (they have some cap space), Vegas could take a shot (and he gets to play with Methot), Dallas needs to move Radulov @ 6.5M and probably Hanzal. These are just various speculations on things teams would need to move in order to have the space to sign Karlsson, then you have to take into account what Ottawa actually wants as a return. Dallas also needs a goalie because Lehtonen is expiring, like actually expiring. Maybe they target Holtby, but he is expensive so this constrains any Karlsson trade even more.
TL;DR
I feel like you are ignoring the real world implications of trading for a player like that, there are only a handful of teams that can trade and resign Karlsson. Most teams could theoretically trade futures for Karlsson and then offload the expensive contracts to make space before the pre-negotiated contract comes into effect, but then why would Ottawa want 5 draft picks on a team that won't ever draft above 25-30. Counter - why would contending teams/high spenders lose 3 or 4 good roster players for one defensemen. These leaves Ottawa looking to trade with middling/desperate teams, that also have cap space and/or assets Ottawa needs. Ottawa is picking up the phone and basically saying - "I need you to negotiate with this guy because I can't, then after you are done negotiating with him, I need you to give me 2 picks and 2 good players for the right to sign him to contract you just negotiated". Ottawa overpaid hard for Duchene, now they have to figure out how to resign him and resign Karlsson. I think you are going to see that Duchene trade start to cost Ottawa a lot in the next couple of years. On top of all of these constraints, Karlsson has a list of 10 teams he isn't going too, that eliminates almost 33% of the league from the start. In order of occurrence from "most likely" to "least likely" - Karlsson gets resigned > Karlsson goes to UFA >> Karlsson gets traded.