Can they afford to give Mittlestadt 7+ and add a top 4 RHD if one of the more expensive forwards doesn’t shake loose though?
I know there’s some bad money coming off the books this summer but with the power/dahlin raises kicking in and skinner still on the books, I’m not sure trading pure futures for a top 4 RHD will fit their cap structure
So let's take a look at next season, when all the extensions will be kicked in:
Skinner/Thompson/Tuch/Cozens/Greenway: $31M
Dahlin/Power/Samuelsson/Clifton: $27M
5 forwards, 4 D: $58M.
So that gives us ROUGHLY $30M in cap space. Now, let's account for ELCs:
Benson, Peterka, Quinn, Johnson = $3.6M. Down to roughly $26M with 8 Fs, 5D.
Let's go on the high-end and say we re-sign UPL to a 4x4, and bring in a backup at roughly 2M -- that's $6M. So now down to $20M needing to sign 5 forwards and 2 Dmen.
All of this to say -- I think there's room for ONE more 7+M contract comfortably.
This makes Andersson a rather picture perfect fit for Buffalo. We've got the top 4 RHD need. He's signed reasonably and wouldn't need an extension until Skinner is in the easy-buyout category. His contract allows us to re-sign Mitts at the Cozens/Tage deal PLUS trade for Andersson. $11.5 M total gives us ROUGHLY $9M in cap space for 4 forwards and a #7 Dman. Not hard.
So yeah, we can do a deal for Andersson that involves futures and one current ELC (think Krebs and/or Peterka). It'll be tight for the offseason of 26....but that's 2 years down the line.