Quoting: McDavidFan97
How do you see the 2022-23 cap situation? By my estimation this puts us right against the cap. Quite likely we can't resign Bear or Kassian gets unloaded somehow. Too much money tied up with Saad imo I can't see Holland cutting it so close
edit: Overall i think this would be a top 5 team as long as we get good goaltending. Great lineup
For sake of argument let's assume Benson, Jones, and the 2022 2nd are used to acquire Strome at the 2022 deadline. The Oilers get to at minimum the WCF, god forbid they do the thing. Strome doesn't extend.
2022 expiring cap: Archibald, dead cap, Koskinen, Kulikov, and Sbisa ($10M). Raises to Bear, Puljujarvi, McLeod, and Nurse total to a maximum of $7M. Broberg (ELC), Holloway (ELC), and Samorukov ($850k) join the roster. It's important to note that CapFriendly hasn't calculated Broberg's slide properly: his ELC 'begins' in the 2021-22 season so we don't need to worry about extending him yet. Winner of Konovalov vs. Skinner is the backup. The Oilers will be right up against the cap next year and may have to run a 22-man roster and some bonus overages may carry over into 2023.
The Oilers lose $2.25M in dead cap the following season and I think the club walks away from Klefbom unless he takes a steep discount. Broberg and Samorukov will be given the reigns to the bottom-two pairs and I think Bouchard can be bridged similarly to how Nurse was (approx. $3.2M). Broberg will have less of a claim to anything over $2M. Khaira's replaced by a cheap, PK specialist for less than $1M. It's manageable but tight for the next two years.
Trading Kassian at 50% retained with a small kicker for virtually nothing probably becomes a necessity somewhere down the road.