I dig it.

I don't know much about Parssinen, but I like getting a lot of fresh faces in the lineup. I doubt both Davies + Carrier start next season, but I would expect them to make the team (or one traded maybe). Pitlick + Tomasino have both shown that they deserve a look (and hopefully more) in the NHL next season too. Hopefully we give Tolvanen a shot to succeed too and boost his confidence -- I think he's actually looked pretty good so far when he's played this season. And Olivier + Trenin have both played well in their roles so far this season, so I think they should be starters next year (maybe Olivier plays about 50-60 games or so). It would be interesting if Saros gets a 1 year deal (I think he'll get 3 or so) since Askarov would be coming to North America after next season and would potentially replace Saros -- maybe he spends a year in the AHL though.

Too soon to make a call on Kunin. It’s going to be a tough pill to swallow, but we really need to expose one or both of Joey/Duchene. I’m not sure why you wouldn’t. Joey is one of the worst contracts in the league. It would probably help him to have a change of scenery. Duchene was overpaid from the start with the goal of him helping us win now. Since we haven’t and won’t win now (last year, this year, next year) that contract will start looking really bad in the last few years and will be impossible to unload. We can have one of these two guys but not both if we want to win within the next 5 years. Next year might be rough but in the 2022-23 season Tomasino should be ready to be a 2C.

We should protect Forsberg-Arvy-Kunin-Duchene. You could honestly convince me that we should resign Granlund and expose Kunin. We have too many good players right now to consider a full rebuild. The goal should be a really competitive team in 2022-23 like you said. That’s the perfect window of adding the young guns like Tomasino/Askarov/Afanasyev but still having our core (Forsberg, Duchene, Arvy, Josi, Ellis, Ekholm) in their prime-ish.

Davies and Carrier have been spending time together on the Wolves so far this season which is why i put them together. I doubt we'll find a home for both Boro and Benning so they can swap in and out but i mainly want to start integrating the young players. On top of that, since we'll likely end up in the top 5-10 of the draft we'll likely end up with another dman.

Tolvanen has proven that he isn't a liability out there on the ice. It's time to give him a more offensive role and see if he can reignite that offensive flame he had in his first year of the KHL.

Tomasino looks amazing and needs a shot as well.

Trenin should be given a shot in a more offensive role. He showed in MIL that he can thrive in that role given the proper circumstances.
Olivier should be a lock for starting the season as well.

Parssinen is having a great year overseas. Pitlick is off to a good start in Chicago. Both should be given a shot.

Saros - gave him a 1 year deal since he's been shaky this season. I feel like he'll want to prove he can be the starter and earn more $$.
Askarov - he's atleast 2 seasons off. I think Nashville needs to start thinking about how best to set up the team for when he comes over in 2-4 seasons that way we don't have a bunch of 30+ year old players when Askarov is in his prime. The team as currently constructed looks spent.

Main reason i don't expose both Duchene/Joey is that well... look at our centers now. With Joey injured, we can't muster a decent offense and are getting 1 goal a game. As overpaid as those two are, they're the best options we've got. That said if we could draft in the top 5 and pull out a great looking C in the draft, exposing one of them and trying to coax seattle into taking one would be a fine game plan... then again if we can get a top 3 pick in the 2022 draft we could end up with a great C prospect there but that's a gamble. Tomasino - I'm hesitant to bank on as a center but if he pans out as a C we can push Joey/Duchene to wing.

On Granlund, he's having a good year but he's closing in on 30 and as a team that's already on the downward trend I'd be hesitant on further investing on aging players. It just hasn't been panning out for us.

But why invest in youth/picks now when we won’t be able to sign them in 3 years if they play up to their potential? Paying $16M for 2 centers just won’t work in the flat cap. Your only hope at really competing is getting absolute studs that will contribute while on their entry level contracts. I don’t think you realize how handcuffed we are in 2-3 years if we keep both these guys and they continue to perform at the level they have. It will be near impossible to win a cup.

looks like we're gonna try #1C Luke Kunin tonight. Maybe he just needs the opportunity too.

Only way we get handcuffed is if Tomasino et. al. Perform great. Jarnkrok, Grimaldi, Cousins, Boro, Benning, and presumably Ekholm will all be off of the books. Currently sitting at 45.9M in contracts for 2022 (in this sim). Forsberg shouldn't cost more then 8M with the current cap situation which would leave ~27.5M to fill out the rest of the contracts which is perfectly doable as long as we don't have to shell out a ton b/c Tomasino et al came in and rocked it. Even then they'd only really have 1 NHL year under their belts and we could buy time with shorter contracts. I just don't think we'd be setting up Tomasino or Tolvanen for success if we were expecting them to create offense with a career bottom 6C like Jarnkrok.