Without Condon, Burrows and Gaborik contracts

that Ceci contract makes me want to cry

Unfortunately for Sens they have to account for all those players on LTIR (well except MacArthur).

Sorry for the long delay before answering but the point here was not to put them on LTIR, which should only happen with MacArthur. It was just to see the situation without those contracts, which are IMO the first 3 contracts the team needs to get rid of.

Yeah its really hard to get rid of bad contracts. Good teams are near the cap, poor teams are teams even close to the bottom don't want to pay for non performers. At least Burrows and Condon deals end soon but Gaborik and Ryan seem to have contracts that are virtually untradeable, without giving up picks or getting back equally bad contracts. Think the Sens (and their fans) are just going to suck it up for a few years.

1) They could buyout Burrows. It would cost $833,333 in 2018-19 and $833,333 in 2019-20

The cap hit for 2018-19 remains of $2,500,000 but who cares? Team will be under the cap.

Benefit is that it leaves a spot to a younger guy and the team saves $833,333 in real cash in the process while spreading the rest of the salary owed on 2 years. Of course, in the end you don't save much because you need to pay the guy replacing him so I'm not too sure they would go with that option.

They could possibly trade him (back to Vancouver to end his career?), but might have to retain up to $1,000,000 to be able to do it. They save $1,500,000, replace him by McCormick who makes $650,000 next year (already on a 1-way anyway) and save $850,000 in the process

2) Gaborik I'm not too sure what will happen with that but maybe he plays in 2018-19 and then retires after that saving the team some significant money ($6,250,000 spread on 2 years) when the Duchene and EK extensions kick in.

If not, buying him out would be spreading a cost of $1,202,778 over the next 6 years but that would allow the team to save $3,608,332 in real cash in the process (BUT $7,216,664 in the first 3 years which is where they might want to save money the most). Again, who cares about the cap hit? Same with Burrows, allows a younger, faster, hungrier guy to make his mark.

3) Condon... Buying him out saves the team $3,666,666 in real cash on the first 2 years ($1,833,333 total on the whole 4 years)

Or retaining and trade him could be an option.

Of course, many other possibilities, like part of bigger trades, etc.

4) Ryan you are not in a rush to trade him. The team needs to hit the cap floor and he is still a top-6 forward when healthy. Of course all these injuries affect his production but there's definitely not 6 forwards on the team better than him right now.

OR, if they retain on his salary (like $2,000,000 per season ), they could find takers and actually get an asset or two. Ryan at $5,250,000 per season for 4 years seems reasonable and a team could go with this.

Buying him out could be an option too. Save $1,833,333 per year in the first 4 seasons (but only $7,333,333 over 8 years in the end)

Personally, I'd prefer to have him on the team until we have 6 better top-6 forwards than him. It depends on how long it takes for Brown, White, Chlapik, Batherson, Formenton, Gagne and possibly the first round picks in the upcoming draft. Of course, they will not all become top-6 forwards but several of them should.