Me too.
They’ll probably wait for July 1st to make it seem like they’re an honest organization, but they’ll intentionally low-ball him and put the blame on him.
If the Vegas deal is their preferred deal, I think it goes down prior to July 1st. Ryan has a 2M signing bonus due July 1st, and if the Senators wait to make the deal, that means Melnyk has to pay it.
Similar to the Subban trade, I could see this going right down to the wire prior to July 1st. (Subban was a bit of a different situation, MTL didn't want his NMC kicking in on July 1st rather than an unwillingness to pay a bonus) If Vegas is smart, they realize that they have leverage in respect to Ottawa having to make the deal prior to July 1st to avoid Ryan's bonus.
Regarding offering Karlsson a contract on July 1st, Dorion can still come out and clarify the situation, that they can actually talk contracts prior to July 1st in order to come to an agreement, and that they can only sign on July 1st. So after the trade, he can very easily sell that the Senators lived up to their end of the agreement by talking with Karlsson, but that they could not come to terms.
In a few days, teams are allowed to talk with UFAs which they do not own the rights to in order to gear up for July 1st. I could see trade talks regarding Karlsson accelerating after this period commences, because I'd imagine teams that are in on Karlsson might also be looking at John Carlson. It makes sense for a team like VGK or other teams to wait and see if a top pairing D like John Carlson is available in free agency before giving up a boat load of assets for Erik Karlsson. Not to mention there are teams hoping to be in on Tavares who may not want to deal for Erik Karlsson until they figure out if they need to allocate 12M+ worth of cap space in order to sign Tavares. In that respect, Tavares and Carlson both re-signing with their original teams in the coming days could be hugely beneficial to the Senators if they wish to deal Karlsson prior to July 1st.
