I truly believe something like this happens. A little lower cap hit but longer term

Then what happens when Dermott/Hyman are ready to return?

Oilers send out $0 in salary, but take on $4.5m in salary for their current cap space of $2.4m at a position Ceci isn't an upgrade for them at. Makes perfect sense, Oilers accept.

That's a lot for Gardiner. If anyone had offered him a 6m AAV he'd be signed by now. Oilers have no incentive to take Ceci, no space either, and Dubas seems to really like him (or at least want to give him a shot this year).

Dermott makes less than Sandin who would be sent down before he burns a year off his contract anyways and Hyman only makes 1,300,000 more than JP/Mikheyev which they could make up for by carrying less players on the roster and shuffling guys back and forth from the marlies like they did last year


Lol I’ll be honest I didn’t look at the oilers situation. The point of the trade was to show that in order to resign Gardiner, Ceci will have to be shipped off without taking money back which should be entirely doable, but i guess apparently not to the oilers


All valid points and what would be my bet to likely happen is that Ceci stays and Gardiner signs elsewhere. However 6 mil would still a bargain because of the three year term. A lot of teams would pay 6 million on a 1/2/3 year deal but Gardiner understandly wants a longer term contract. If he really wants to stay a Leaf he’d need to sacrifice term because in three years the leafs will have more important issues like resigning Reilly and Sandin who should be taking over his role by then anyways.

The leafs end would only get rid of ceci at best and not to oilers letsloneget anything back.