Sabres have the 6th best goaltending tandem in the league, why are they giving up a second to get worse. Also adding a 7th doesnt balance it out...

I don't think we can afford Panarin.

Pens can't afford bread man, and especially since you sent essentially no salary back to Chicago. This leaves you with just under 20M in cap space next year (and that's assuming you were able to unload Fleury without buying him out, which would put that number around 17-18M). Dumoulin, Sheary, and Schultz (hopefully) need new deals, which in the most conservative estimate possible would be about 9-10 M combined for the 3 of them. Pokka, who you acquired, would also need a new deal. That leaves less than 10 M (and that's generous) to sign 1-2 veteran blue liners (depending on whether Pokka is actually NHL ready) because there is nobody in the system who could step in, 1-2 depth forwards (that's assuming Guentzel and Sundqvist are regular NHLers next year), and Nilsson (who would need to be re-upped before the expansion draft in order to protect Murray). Adding all of those things together using team friendly cap estimates and assuming that young players are ready to step into more prominent roles, that still leaves only 3-4 million for bread man, which is definitely not enough.