Big underpay on Hertl, 100% gets at least 2M more
Suzuki offer is also a massive underpay and you only bought 1 UFA year

Suzuki 8y x 8M
Hertl 6y x 8M
Romy if he do good 2y x 3M
so add 8M... and remove Chiarot.. you should be close to 81M

No where near cap compliant as Byron can't be hidden, and really Price does return. Maybe Weber returns as he wants to be on a Cup winner and hopes for one himself

… is what I’d do if I was a salary cap arsonist.

There are 12 teams right now with cap space. Most of those are budget teams.

Try being creative. There are and will be ways where we can basically do whatever we need to do. These guys want to win.

Habs have one of the most "strange" caps going forward. A lot of unknowns. Is Byron moveable at 3.4m without taking cap back? For what length of time will Price be on LTIR if at all? Does Weber, small salary discourage him from gettin g NHL ready and motivates him to retire. Plus Suzuki if he has a stellar year, what salary and term does he sign for?

All great questions. If Suzuki signs a 6 year extension, he’ll be 28 at the conclusion at the conclusion of his next deal. No Carey Price and Shea Weber on the books at that point.
This notion of wanting to put the screws to an organization to extract the maximum money out of a team cap I do not believe is primordial to the thinking of most players (who care about winning first). Suzuki can probably sign for the contract I listed above today, if he wants to. My guess is that an extension gets done sooner rather than later. Being the second highest paid forward after Gallagher is hardly anything to sneeze at when you figure that he signed for 6x$3.75mm out of entry level.

"I do not believe is primordial to the thinking of most players (who care about winning first"). Umm, you're telling a Leafs fan that after Nylander, Matthews and Marner, extracted as much $$$ as they could, and for some reason, Leaf management gave in to them paying 4.5m collectively above all comparables.

Yeah, I think Dubas and ultimately Shanahan as well, are pretty weak contract negotiators. If I was MLSE, both would have been fired after the loss to Columbus in the play-in, and certainly after the Habs came back from 3-1 down.

With that said, I think Nylander and Matthews are more or less fair value for their contracts. That Marner wanted that cap hit though is a totally different story. It was reminiscent to me of when PK demanded $9mm. What’re you, nuts? Sure thing PK, you just sealed your fate that we will be trading you before your NTC kicks in.

If Toronto management had any cojones, Marner would already be gone. Two more years before his NMC kicks in.