Why is everyone suddenly giving hall less than 4 mill? Yesterday they were giving around 6

Answer: you will not get a cup

Don't think a 2nd and a 5th is that far off on Eriksson honestly. First is probably what it takes to get Ottawa to take that contract on tho.

With a flat salary cap? The Senators wouldn’t do this even if the cap was continuously going up.

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Tampa Bay

I genuinely think they do. They took on about 3.5m for one year from Tampa with Paquette and Coburn and got paid a 2nd. If Vancouver finishes middle of the pack I don't see why Ottawa wouldnt pick him up for a pick in the 10-20 range. Carolina got paid a 1st (ended up being 13th overall) by Toronto to take on one year of Marleau at around 6m as well. Ottawa has about 14m coming off the books this offseason between Stepan, Anisimov and Gudbranson. Another million is being shaved off of what Phaneuf's buyout if costing against the cap too.

All that to say, assuming they dont sign a big ticket free agent I could definitely see it happening given the cap space that Ottawa will have even after signing Tkachuk and Batherson.

its for 1 year....
they wont be contending for at least 3 years
why not get picks?

Like I said in my other comment they got paid a 2nd by Tampa to take on one year of half as much salary as Eriksson carries. Carolina got paid a 1st by Toronto to take on one year of the same amount of salary that Eriksson carries. It would cost at least a first with the flat cap.

Weaponizing cap space is good but there’s no sense doing it for pennies on the dollar...

I apologize, I must’ve only half read your post when I responded to it. I was talking about a 2nd and a 5th. A 1st is much more reasonable.