If Point and erne sit out the beginning of the season

I'd give Verhaeghe a chance.

yeah and he's waivers eligible so

IMO Volkov & Barre-Boulet have more chances to make the club than Stephens
you just move Johnson back to C

It makes me wonder if we should consider a trade. Volkov, Stephens, Barré-Boulet, Erne, Martel, Verhaeghe, Raddysh, Conacher, Schenn, Foote, and Masin all could be realistic NHL players and we don’t have space for all of them. Foote is untouchable and we have two forward spots for the rest of them, but we could make a pretty great package out of the remainder of those and get an asset that’s immediately valuable (and we have Colton, Somppi, Walker, and N. Foote ready by the time we do need the prospects). I certainly wouldn’t want to lose most of them to waivers, but I don’t know how many roster players BriseBois plans to get rid of to save cap. If they’re almost definitely never getting a chance here, you might as well let them try elsewhere.

Some players on NHL roster with bigger $ will likely have to be moved due to cap reasons; will open up some spots.

That’s not true for this season. Next season, Killorn will probably be moved, and maybe one of Johnson, Palat, or Gourde. NTCs still exist, so we would move only who we absolutely must move, which is definitely not more than Killorn and one other player. By the time Seattle takes someone else, people like N. Foote, Walker, Somppi, etc. will be ready. We have more NHL-ready prospects than we need for sure.