Our idiot owner and GM need to understand this: if you let Karl/Duchene/Stone leave as trades, you will be lucky to get back players of the calibre to be equal to Karl/Duchene/Stone in 3-5 years. By then Tkachuk, Batherson, etc. and any of White, Brown etc. will be off their entry deals and at market salaries, so you won't be able to afford them all with your cheap-a** internal salary cap, right when Gustafsson hits his top stride. You're idiots to hope for a cavalcade of talent to ripen at once because it is unaffordable. The Kings won with stars + cheap youth in Toffoli, Pearson etc.. You need to keep your stars now and hope the youth gets ripe soon, and that Gaborik is physically unable to play and you can add talent with his money if covered by insurance.
My belief is that Cheapo looks at the equation of guaranteed tv money + guaranteed radio money + seat revenue - costs = profits, and thinks that saving $18M or so by paying almost the salary floor will only cost him about $10M in seat revenue, and thinks he can suck and profit for a few years while waiting for media deals to come up for renewal.
We will need to prove to him that a bargain basement, embarrassment roster will cost him a bundle with an empty arena, and if he lets 2 of Karl/Duchene/Stone go without similar immediate replacements, I will never buy another ticket while he is owner.