Frankie41987
Registered User
The cap is going to be $84M at minimum and can go up to $88M (it won't because of escrow).
Barzal at $8.5M
Pulock at $6M
Toews at $2.5M
That puts the team $3.3M over the cap and they'd have to sign a backup goalie still (Sorokin can only cost so much in his first year, let's say $1M).
Lee Barzal Eberle
Ladd Nelson Bailey
Beauvillier Pageau Dal Colle
Johnston Cizikas Komarov
Dal Colle Koivula
Pelech Pulock
Toews Mayfield
Leddy Boychuk
Dobson (could be Aho instead)
Varlamov
Sorokin
Trading Clutterbuck alone would almost free up enough space. I expect a trade or two to create the room necessary, and there might be a trade to bring someone back that could be useful. The "bad" contracts likely don't need to be packaged with anything unless you're talking about Ladd or Boychuk. Even then, Boychuk is serviceable and can still play in the NHL. We'll see what each of the RFAs get though, maybe my estimations are way off.
If we can get Barzal at 8.5 i'd be very happy. My concern is that we are going to be right up against the cap with a really flawed team even after we trade away some salary (I'd move Komarov a million times over before Clutter). Any chance of getting a guy like Hoffman or a legitimate sniping winger, or really making any splash into the UFA market is going to take some serious creativity and I don't trust that Lou has that in him. Clearly you are more optimistic about it than me and good for you, I hope you're right.