That's a horrible mentality for building a team for the future to be a perennial cup contender. Just deal with the cap implications in the future? The buyout method is not the way. I dont want to be in cap hell bc of dead cap space which is exactly what would happen in the years when we are ready to compete for the cup. I know people say it's only a few million here and there for the next 4 years, and it saves so much for this year.
Let's be honest, the cap has not been going up as expected, there is a lot of chatter that the cap will be set after next year and I doubt it will be at more than 85m. Having 4 to 6m in dead cap space in the future is a short sighted move for a rebuilding team. We need all the cap we can get to sign our own players, and make trades like we did with the trouba deal. Having cap space is a major asset to have in a cap world.
We are not competing for the cup this year nor are we even a playoff team yet. Trade the players that dont fit our rebuild. Krieder will want an Anders Lee type deal 7years 7m aav. No thanks not for a player who disappears for long stretches in games and for the season, trade him for picks and prospects. That's 4.5m off the cap. Then trade names for a 3rd like in the vesey deal. That's another 4m off. There is our 6.5m that we need in order to sign buch, DeAngelo, and lemieux. And if it's not just have them sign the qualifying offer and see if they are worth more money. Trade shatty at the deadline if we can.
Hopefully we play well but are still in the lottery and end up with a top 5 pick and get a franchise forward. Continue to build the right way. Then if we need to we can buy players out the next season, when they cap hit is lower and only for 2 years.
But I'm sure gorton and jd know what they are doing and I trust them to build the team the right way. They did make Boston a perennial cup contender and st Louis a cup winner.
Next year will be tight, but we have no real players of importance that need big deals next year.
The year after, we free up $25 million in space due to expirings.
The year after that, there will be a new TV deal, and the cap will definitely be rising dramatically on that account.
I wouldn't worry about losing anyone we really want. The better question is, are we gonna lose out on some good deals because we have to give bridge deals instead of long term deals that would look great in 3 years?
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to avoid buying out Smith, but if we can't, I'm not gonna lose sleep.... Smith's future hits are not that bad if we buy him out.
My preferred approach would be to find takers for Kreider at fair market value (like a first and prospect) and Namestnikov for peanuts (a third? A second? Whatever). But I do not know for sure if that is possible.
Kicking this small can down the road a year isn't "horrible," -- it's merely an inconvenient side effect of signing an elite player in Panarin. And again, even if we did have to lose someone like Kreider for less than market value because of this.... uh, oh well.... that's the trade off. Panarin for Kreider. That's a win for us. Don't sweat it if Kreider doesn't bring back exact value.