@melloni17 please consider the above. 5 mil over the 85 mil cap. This doesn't even factor in the owed bonuses of 2.8 mil

that NYR trade doesn't go through so this is moot

I wouldn't have resigned Vesey first off! Jodie Benn would most likely have been traded or buried in this situation allowing for one of the youngsters to fill in at #7 D. There is your 5 million. And if Risto has a good year it increases his trade value! Bottom line they need to worry about the team now and not next season or 3 seasons down the road. You can make the team better now and be able to compete now and worry about cap casualties later! I would rather have to make a decision on who we have to trade off the roster than not putting someone on now because it may hurt us next season! There are ways to get it done!

Not to mention not figured in is a contract lost to Seattle! That draft is after this season!

The Sabres are bottom of the Eastern conference this year, they have no reason to go out and dump money of Free agents, it wont help them

Rangers are fine in that regard.

Kakko, Kravtsov, Fox, Miller, Lundkvist, Shesterkin are all exempt.

You protect: Zibanejad, Chytil, Andersson, Howden, Buchnevich, Kreider*, Panarin* -- * if they are on the team, Lemiuex could be input for one of them if not
Defense: Skjei, Trouba, DeAngelo
Goalie: Georgiev

UFAs/potentially gone: Lundqvist, Staal, Shattenkirk, Namesnikov, Vesey

Potentially Exposed: Lemieux, Strome, Vesey, Ronning, Lettieri, Nieves, Lindgren, Hajek, Day -- losing any of these doesn't really hurt the rangers that bad at all as they have plenty of prospects to fill the void. Most likely it would be one of Lemieux or Hajek to go, and we have enough defensive prospects in Miller, Rykov, Reunanen, etc to fill hajek and only have to worry about filling one bottom six forward role

Pilut doesnt make 3.5 million at the end of this season. Not sure how you have him getting such a raise.

Also do not resign Vesey, he sucks.

wasn't the cap set at 81.5?