@AKL
Copied from the GDT yesterday, concerning Dumba's future and the ED:
As of now, without any trades or negotiating with Seattle to protect anyone specifically, I would anticipate protecting Parise, Zuccarello, Ek, Fiala, Suter, Spurgeon, Brodin, Dumba, Kahkonen- which means losing Greenway, most likely.
I'm still talking to Parise about waiving, if he does, you protect Greenway. If he doesn't want to waive, I'm talking about mutual termination. If he chooses not to do that, he can be bought out. I'm not paying anyone to take Parise while still having recapture to worry about.
Then, I'm talking to Seattle about paying for Dumba. We gain leverage from not having to worry about Parise's NMC. So we protect Greenway AND Dumba, and they can either Soucy, Foligno, or Talbot (maybe Menell?). But maybe they want to toss a first next year or a prospect they get in another trade our way to ensure Dumba is left exposed. Then we get a return for him while not losing anyone else. If they don't want to pay for Dumba (could even work for Greenway), then they just take Soucy or Foligno.
Finally, even after navigating through the ED with Dumba, I'm trading him either in the summer or at the trade deadline for a 1st+prospect, similar to Zucker.
Dumba, Parise's buy out, and Bonino/Johansson/Cole contracts expiring should provide us with the space to re-sign Kaprizov, Fiala and Ek, who I don't think will cost as much as some do. Rask's contract ending next season covers the Parise savings going away. The year after that, Talbot's contract ends, and the year after that, Zuccarello's contract ends. Presumably the cap starts going up again somewhere in there as well.
There are some interesting ideas here. First, the thought of trying to see if Seattle would for the privilege to choose Dumba. I don't think I've seen that discussion before. It would be big question that they would want him that badly, but it sure doesn't hurt to ask.
Second interesting point: By this post, Dumba is considered to be of much greater value than either of Greenway or Foligno. That's worth discussion, but only if we can talk about why we think whatever we think.
Third, AKL says that given a choice between Greenway, Foligno, Soucy or Talbot,
that Seattle chooses Talbot. That's a value judgment worth discussing as well. It would go along with: If Parise waives, and you protect 4-4-1, who is the 4th forward to be protected?
Fourth, concerning Parise: There is no way to avoid something like 20M in cap space on him in the future. Trade, and the recapture penalty will come back to us, because he isn't playing out 4 more years. Buyout, and we still have to pay the rest of the contract. Post buyout cap hit would be: 2.4, 6.4, 7.4, 7.4 + 4 years at 833K. The last 4 years are not such a big deal. If Rask is not bought out, as AKL says, then his 4M perfectly slots into the increase in cap hit for 22-23 for Parise's contract, which makes planning easier. On the other hand, trading him, and figuring that he retires in 2 more years yields....0, 0, 7.5, 7.5, 5 for cap hits, or something like that. Clearly, this is roughly the same, except that it affords a window for a 2 year rental 2C using Parise's cap space, and the 5M at the end happens in 25-26, when Suter's contract is also gone, so there might be room to mitigate it there to some degree.
These are the questions. AKL's whole scheme works just fine with the cap, since in any case, Dumba's contract goes (even if through a trade).
Thoughts??
