contenders

"Hello fellow Pacific division team! We would like you to pay us for the honor of acquiring Milan Lucic so that we can dump his salary and sign Nazem Kadri! It cost Vegas a 24 year old up and coming dman to dump Pacioretty? Nawwwwww dudez, Lucic brings more to the table than him! Have a great day!"

I mean a team only has to pay Lucic around 850k this year, he just has a large cap hit. Meanwhile Pacioretty makes 5mil this year, so a rebuilding team like Anaheim with plenty of cap space doesn't really get handicapped by a trade like this. Maybe they don't give CGY a 5th however.

The thing is though, Anaheim have zero obligation to do a giant favour to a division rival. Money owed or not. The cap is king right now, Anaheim is above the floor, and rescuing Calgary so that they can sign Kadri (in this example) makes zero sense.

One has leverage, the other does not (again, in this example.)

Bare minimum is a 2nd + in 2023 to dump Lucic. I think there may be some teams that would take a flyer on Monahan. But will still cost 2nd for them to take the risk. I don't think Calgary will get Kadri anyway, more likely to sign Stastney to a 1-2 year deal and can afford to keep both.