Quoting: CMcAvoy73
Yes, but in the off season, maybe it just means that you send a little salary over, and then don’t extend someone. I’m going to use the bruins as an example, not because i think there’s any chance they trade for eichel, but just because i know their cap situation well. They’ll probably give krejci 5 mill. Send all the assets over, add John Moore to balance salaries a bit, and don’t re-sign krejci. There’s 7.75 right there. How about the blues. Don’t extend schwartz or Hoffman, and there’s 9. So on and so forth.
I think we all agree that a player of eichel’s caliber being dealt with so much term left is a rarity, and teams will be willing to go to the extra mile to acquire such a player. Then factor in that a team is joining the league with zero cap obligations, and a desire for futures, and all of a sudden, you have your market.
Yeah I mean most teams can't do it at all. Gotta consider internal caps as well, half the league is operating sub 75 mil in terms of salary.
I'll go with your STL example though. Let's play it out.
Buffalo wants 4 pieces worth 1sts, all of which are either on ELC's, not signed yet, or are picks. So no RFA's or anyone past ELC.
Blues have 18 mil in cap space. Eichel takes up 10 mil, so now they have 8 mil. 8 mil to sign Thomas, Kyrou, Dunn, Sanford, Barbashev.... Good luck getting any of those guys long term, oh and you're either losing 3 1sts and Perunovich or 4 1sts along the way just to get Eichel. So it's not like you can lose
any of those RFA's and replace them.
Of course, that's if St. Louis even wants to pay 81 mil next year.
The thing is this is the case with most teams. Most teams can't do it either in terms of having cap space, having the picks/prospects to spare, having the room on the roster, or even just having the ability to pay the salaries.... And you need to have
every one of those things.
And then beyond having all those things, you have to actually
want to spend 50 mil and significant
cheap assets on a guy who followed up missing an
average of 9 games a year with major neck surgery....
The list of teams actually able to move beyond expressing interest to making something even possible to happening is maybe 1-2 deep. And one of those teams probably doesn't even want him considering the risk/cost. And then of course Jack actually has to want to play for that team...