Why would Holland want to buyout 1 year of Kris Russell? He's a decent player still, has only 1 year left on his contract, is a key part of Edmonton's #2 ranked penalty kill, and makes just $1.5M next year. Holland can trade him if he wants to, no reason to pay someone to take Neal if there's a CB on tap.

It's about what it could potentially be used for. There's a ton of winger help out there every offseason that you can look at to improve the forward corps instead of spending $9M in cap space on Neal and Russell. Instead of those two, how about Haula and Toffoli, as an example? If not those two, how about a trade acquisition?

Ok so your gonna have 6 people playing top 4 minutes and you still have bean and Fleury. I don't think Vatanen is gonna sign

Yes, I think it's the right idea for this upcoming season to play a 6-deep defense as Nedeljkovic gets adjusted into the NHL. It's only for one year, and then Vatanen would leave for UFA the season after, when the market is friendlier. The Canes have the luxury to do it even with a flat cap, since Svech's ELC lasts for one more season.

Vatanen is leaving im telling you that. Then Hamilton is gonna leave cause he is mad at why there are so many defenseman he has to share Ice time with.

First, your proposal has the Oilers taking back a $3.125M contract, so the cap savings for Edmonton is only $6.625M in your scenario.

Second, if there's a CBO, Holland will likely use that on Neal resulting in $5.75M cap savings, nearly as much as your proposal. So then we're only talking about Russell, who can be traded as a player or as a CBO candidate for a LOT cheaper than Neal can be due to post-buyout earnings. (Russell's PBOE is $2M while Neal's is $11.5M actual cash cost.) If he can move Russell's cap hit off the books entirely, that's $9.75M cap savings vs $6.625M in this AGM. Even if he has to retain 50% of Russell's cap, he still comes out ahead with $7.75M cap savings.

So he can achieve more by doing it this way, and as a bonus he still has Puljujarvi as trade bait and he didn't have to take back an expensive, mediocre goaltender.

Hamilton is gonna leave for nothing? Buahahahahahahahahahaha! If he doesn't agree to re-up with us at a fair price, you can bet that we'll deal him in a sign-and-trade.

wtf do you know hockey. Why would Hamilton stay when he is going to be playing 15minutes of ice time. You still got Bean and Fleury doing nothing. Hamilton will go to ufa and get paid 8mil

If you split the time evenly (which almost certainly won't), that'll be 20 minutes of ice time. Hamilton will almost-certainly get more than that.b

do you know math. There are 60 minutes in a game. Are you gonna give Hamilton Slavin Skjei Gardiner Bean Fleury 20 minutes. That is not even possible Slavin Hamilton Gardiner and Skjei should be getting 20 minutes

Slavin, Hamilton, Gardiner, Pesce, and Skjei can all get around 20 minutes of TOI in a scenario like that, with Hamilton getting more than that and one of Skjei or Gardiner getting less.

Then you have an upset defensive core that has to many players getting high minutes. Why would Hamilton stay?