lots of people in this thread have no concept of the salary cap. have to fit everybody you are keeping, everybody you are acquiring, get Savard millions on there for the first contract day of the season and allow for about five million in bonuses achieved that will count against the cap. you folks that are thinking they can dump Kelly and McQuaid (stupid) and then sign somebody are extremely far off. just because the current team was a fit last season doesn't mean they will be this season. the cap ignorance is really strong in this fanbase.
I am pretty sure that if they got rid of Kelly and McQuaid and did not sign any UFA's that they would be well under the cap even giving Krug and Smith very good raises.
Of course if they really do want to sign Iginla then someone else has to go too unless it is another bonus laden contract.
This roster gets them under the cap with room to spare and they can still make deals to improve the team any time before the trade deadline.
CAPGEEK.COM ARMCHAIR GM ROSTER
CapGeek Armchair GM Roster
FORWARDS
Milan Lucic ($6.000m) / David Krejci ($5.250m) / Loui Eriksson ($4.250m)
Brad Marchand ($4.500m) / Patrice Bergeron ($6.500m) / Reilly Smith ($3.000m)
Ryan Spooner ($0.760m) / Carl Soderberg ($1.008m) / Matt Fraser ($1.000m)
Daniel Paille ($1.300m) / Gregory Campbell ($1.600m) / Jared Knight ($0.760m)
Bobby Robins ($0.600m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Zdeno Chara ($6.917m) / Dougie Hamilton ($0.894m)
Johnny Boychuk ($3.367m) / Dennis Seidenberg ($4.000m)
Torey Krug ($3.000m) / Kevan Miller ($0.800m)
Joe Morrow ($0.863m) /
GOALTENDERS
Tuukka Rask ($7.000m)
Niklas Svedberg ($0.600m)
LTIR
Marc Savard ($4.027m)
BONUS OVERAGE
$4,750,000
------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(estimations for 2014-15)
SALARY CAP: $71,100,000; CAP PAYROLL: $68,719,167; BONUSES: $820,000
CAP SPACE (22-man roster): $2,380,833
Maybe that is not the best roster possible but it is under the cap and it is under the cap just by moving Kelly and McQuaid.
I don't think everyone is as ignorant as you are claiming they are.