I think we should just assume that Tarasenko is gone unless other information is made public. That gives us 7.5 mil to work with, whether that is extending Kyrou and Thomas (I think they'll get deals that are exactly the same), giving ROR a raise if that's what he desires (he could be more concerned with winning and may take a pay cut like guys in TB), or use it to shore up the defense. Scandella is probably trade bait as well just given the depth we have and his overall play, so there's another 3.275 mil you can get. Then I think we need to talk about the cap raising after players have paid off their escrow(??), which will really start to give teams more flexibility. I worry what Barbashev will ask for, but this is a career season and not too many players can truly ask for a ton of money based on one year. There are people who do it, but I think we could potentially get him for a 1-1.5 mil raise assuming he returns to a 30 point player. Then it's anyone's guess who will fill out the bottom pairing on the defense if we just assume this is the lineup we are going with. I think there will be some tough decisions to make, but Army is a talented GM and has built multiple championship teams even if the one we had during the 2010s didn't win it (Backes captaining). Perron may or may not return to form so there is a potential decrease or wash on salary. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about how the team will look in a year or 2, but Armstrong has been able to keep us competitive despite teams like Winnipeg, Colorado, Nashville, and Minnesota still being relevant.
Using all of Tarasenko's cap space on Thomas/Kyrou gets them to $6.55M each. Unless their 1st halves were major hot streaks, I don't think that gets it done. The market for young forwards got a touch ridiculous last summer.
Suzuki got 8x$7.875M off his ELC after a 60 point pace season.
B Tkachuk got 7x$8.2M off his ELC with essentially three 50 point pace seasons.
Pettersson got 3x$7.35 off his ELC when looking like a consistent 75 point player.
J Hughes got 8x$8M off his ELC. He wasn't close to ppg before the extension, although I think they firmly believed that is what he is.
Barkov got 8x$10M, although his expiring deal would have left him a UFA
Kaprizov got 5x$9M after 55 NHL games looking like a 75 point player
Reihnhart got 3x$6.5M as a 60-65 point player (probably the best age comp to our guys)
Army is a good negotiator and I trust him to get fair deals done with Kyrou/Thomas. But if they keep playing like top line guys, they are going to get paid. They'll eat up all of Tarasenko's cap savings and then some. If they keep playing like the guys we think/hope they are then we are probably talking about spending $10M or so on their raises (plus the $5.6 we are already allocating to them). That is going to eat up all the money saved by replacing Tarasenko and Scandella with ELC contracts. If they cool off and aren't the guys we think/hope then we're probably talking about spending $8M or so on their raises. I hope they make us break the bank.
The HRR debt was reportedly expected/hoped to get paid of by the end of the 2023/24 season, but that was before Omicron caused widespread postponements and limited capacity in Canada. The NHL hasn't hinted to how that impacts their projection, but it is very unlikely that we see much cap movement before out big cap crunch in the summer of 2023. We are probably going to have to ice some barebones depth for a year and then hopefully see a decent cap increase that allows us to fill in depth the following year. The downside is that lots of teams will probably be in that position so the UFA market will be competitive.
