You are quite overrating Athanisiou and Nyquist.

Yeah Athanasiou isn't returning Brannstrom and Nyquist value is a 2018/2019 2nd+Prospect.

And you can't retain more then 2 salaries

Howard is way overrated in this too. We're not giving up our 2016 1st.

Retaining over 2 million of Nyquit's salary for this year and next is sufficient enough for a 1st. Poile knows this, their getting a 40-50 point guy for a little over 2 million for basically one of the last picks in the first ? Get real, that is a fine price for Nyquist.

Don't see Holland retaining close to half of Nyquist salary, He might be willing to retain $1.75 that's still Nyquist @ $3 million but close to half of his salary. I don't see it.

You can retain up too 3 salaries and besides Green would be off the books come July 1st.

What is a retained salary transaction/trade
When a team trades a player, they have the option to retain a part of their salary (and cap hit). The team who retains the salary then pays the retained percentage of the salary, and also retains the percentage of the cap hit until the contract expires. The following requirements must be met to retain salary:
The percentage retained cannot exceed 50 percent of the player’s salary (including all bonuses) and Salary Cap Hit.
The same percentage must be retained for both the player’s salary and Salary Cap Hit, and cannot be modified.
All teams are limited to a maximum of 3 retained salary contracts per season.

https://www.capfriendly.com/faq