Fine by me. But, guys... nobody calls him Senko. What even is that? Call him Vova or Vladdy or Tank (though he apparently doesn't care for that one so much).

I like the trade as a Blues fan. I'm not sure the Canes have the cap space to do it without another move though. Since Gardiner wasn't on LTIR when the season ended, he won't be able to roll over to the new season on LTIR, meaning they won't be able to get cap relief for his contract for the first seven days of the season. Then he can be moved to LTIR. Without Tarasenko, this is fine. They won't have extra skaters for the first few games, but they can send down Lorentz and Smith or whatever combo you want and be fine. Then stash Gardiner on LTIR after a week and call the other guys up.

With Tarasenko's cap hit though, this becomes trickier because suddenly you need to eat into the actual roster (not just the extras) to accommodate the difference between Nino and Tarasenko's cap hit. There's a few teams with interest in Tarasenko that have similar problems- NYR have bonus money overages, the Habs have some LTIR issues too- which is why the retention question mark has been hanging over the Blues' heads for the last few weeks, and (for obvious reasons) they don't want to give into that.

So, this would probably have to happen during the season if it were to happen.

Gardiner can go onto LTIR now, the issue is the cap doesn't get relieved until 7 days in. They could put him on LTIR as soon as training camp starts.

Also, the rule is that the *squad on the ice* has to be below the cap. We saw it when Chicago had to use 16 skaters in a game because they were too cap tied to call anyone up, and went in short handed. With Gardiner out of the lineup, Carolina are still able to slide under the cap.

You're right that they could technically do it, like Chicago did that one time (and the Habs did it for an odd game or two this past year as well), I'm just not sure you should want Tarasenko so bad as to do that to your roster. Hard to burn a couple games in the metro with only three forward lines, which is what the on-ice roster would need to be to fit him (Leivo, Smith, Lorentz, Stepan Necas waived/sent down) until Gardiner provides relief. But hey, it's not my team

Carolina don't open until 2 days into the season and only play 2 games in that time. They could role a full roster, as long as Gardiner isn't in it

Canes can’t take on Tarasenko’s 2nd year at $7.5M unless they want to completely screw up their 22-23 cap structure