Those contracts will be sold on the final year. That's how it works in current NHL. Every contender is against the cap on multi-year plans and then any slightly bad contract with extra years is pretty much untradeable on the trade-deadline.
But on the trade deadline, on the final year, they have good value. And that's our long term plan. Sell everyone on the trade deadline, when they hit the final year.
2018 deadline
- Mike Green
2019
- Niklas Kronwall (if not LTIRetired before that)
- Jimmy Howard (if not being successful)
- Gustav Nyquist
2020
- Jonathan Ericsson
- Trevor Daley
2021
- Darren Helm
- Luke Glendening
2022
- Frans Nielsen
- Dan DeKeyser
2023
- Justin Abdelkader
I think Jimmy will be kept and Kronner will be LTIRetire. But Nielsen and Daley were signed, to help the team a bit, but also to be sold in the future. Contracts are obviously structured that way. NMCs will disappear in the end and salaries are lowest in the end. Very good cheap depth veterans to be sold for contenders of that time.
Holland did this already with Kindl, Smith and Vanek. And will repeat it every year if we are out of playoff race.
If you trade Green, Nyquist, Ericsson, Daley, Nielsen, that's at least 5 extra draft picks. Probably more.