Gibson

Take out Miller. Putting Smith back there full time doesn’t help us.

And add enough retention to get Gibson in $4m-$4.5m range.

I don't think that you're getting Gibson with that much retention unless Anaheim is getting a significant asset back; a 2025 first doesn't do it and you're not about to trade any of your 4 youngsters whose last name begins with the letter "H." Miller is a nice idea as a stopgap, but inasmuch as the Ducks have two RhD prospects on the Canadian team for next month's World Juniors plus Gudas and Lyubushkin, he's a UFA, and you need him more than we do, he can be left out of this deal, but doing so, of course, increases the need for retention on Gibson. So I think that at a minimum, you'd have to send the 2024 first and add Clarke or Stillman (depending upon who the Ducks feel is the better prospect) to Vanecek and the Finnish kid. Since the Ducks really have no pressing need to divest themselves of Gibson, especially if retaining up to $1.6 million (they won't retain more), I think that the offer for him has to be a significant and appealing one.

Do that…but with $2.6m retained instead of $1.6m.

Our cap is going to get tight in Gibsons last two years with Mercer, Hughes Holtz all getting big raises. Play around with 2025-26 NJD lineup and you will see how every dollar will matter.

EDIT - our “cap” not our “gap”

Again I think the big gap here is that ducks fans are viewing gibson as a +ve value asset and the retention as costing more on top of that.
We view gibson as a negative asset at his full cap hit, and the retention being the only thing making him tradable at all.

I think if John Gibson hit waivers today he'd go unclaimed

I think if John gibson were a free agent this past offseason he wouldn't get more than 4.5-5 mill

I think if Gibson were an upcoming UFA he wouldn't get more than 5.5.

In terms of Vanacek.

I think if he was a free agent this past offseason he'd have gotten at least 4

I think if he was a free agent this coming offseason he'd get at least 2-2.5

And I think if he hit waivers one or multiple of Columbus, Toronto, Chicago, put in a claim

I knew that you're familiar with Anaheim's financial practices, so I assumed that it was something like that. It's hard to work out a deal that would satisfy both sides economically, but I haven't checked your recent post on the subject, so maybe you have the solution. I'll go see.