Do your numbers actually work out though? By your own calculations the team is $900k over. If you get rid of Marleau for nothing you have $5.3M in space. Give 2 to Gardiner and you have $3.3M. But you are down two roster spots including a guy who played in your top 4 and a top 6 winger so you only have 21 players even if everyone else signed for what they are making this year. But you have to make room for raises for guys like Kapanen, Johnsson and Leivo who combined make all of $2.6M. If a guy like Kapanen or Johnsson has a bit of a break out year you could easily be looking at $2M for him alone.
There's also $2.6M in bonus overages on the books right now, which we won't have next season because we're carrying space this season. So we're at $5.9M assuming we can get rid of Marleau. Kap and Johnsson are the most likely candidates for raises. Otherwise we have more than enough players on the Marlies making <$1M capable of 4th line duties.
I come to only $2 million over the cap
without trading Marleau. 13F and 7D on the roster. So if we can trade Marleau we have a bit of flexibility. Assumptions are:
* Gardiner at $6M.
* Nylander at $6.5M, Marner at $7.5M, Matthews at $11M.
* $2-3M for Kap and Johnsson. Definitely going to have to bridge them.
* 3 ELC/cheap forwards (2 dressed + 13F). One of these is going to be Grundstrom who is probably on the team in 19-20 whether we're cap constrained or not.
* 3 ELC/cheap defensemen (2 dressed + 7D, not including Dermott since he's already earned a spot). Again, we already have cheap guys that the team was probably going to be relying on regardless (Holl, Liljegren).
So under reasonable assumptions we probably lose Marleau. It's a hit but (1) how many years does he really have left?, and (2) this is also based on two other wingers becoming better players and earning raises. I'm not too concerned about the depth forwards, I trust a lot of the guys on the Marlies. Having inexperienced guys on the bottom pairing is risky but manageable.
