I can't see any team retaining $3m on a contract that has 7 years left on it. Just doesn't make sense.

Might be worth repeating what @villenash said here. This is unprecedented for a reason. No ownership group is willing to pay a good player for 7 years to play on another team.

Unless you are the Leafs, willing to pay 1.2 million for Kessel not to play for them, for 7 years.

When you have more money than God, I suppose.

We have Gio Hanifin Valimaki Kylington we don’t need OEL now or later, this doesn’t make sense for Calgary

But I’m trading gio and kylington

It only makes sense if you’re moving Gio or Lucic. Otherwise it’s way too expensive

I would rather have Gio for 2 years and then those other 3 be our left side than OEL for 7. He wasn’t great this year and costs more than a million more than anyone else on our team (ARI isn’t gonna retain)

I keep seeing the talk of OEL to Calgary. I really don't see it happening unless a serious sacrifice is made by Arizona. AZ has already made huge mistakes recently (Hall and draft penalty) so I could see them being desperate to get picks.

Outside of hockey, the Arizona organization is probably struggling for money right now, as is Calgary (but not to the same extent). I could see a deal where a player from CGY has their bonus paid then traded the next day. Such as waiting until July when Lucic gets a $3 million bonus, then is traded right after. Relevant picks/prospects would then be needed to equal out the trade. But I am certainly not the most knowledgeable when it comes to this stuff so I am making this up as I go.

I like the signing of DeMelo if he chooses Calgary. You still have a bit of cap space to play with to try and bolster the team (but as previously noted, I could see the org trying to go a year saving some money because of the COVID money crunches).