Ghule and Barron will be waivers exempted. Send them down and save another 2M.

Petry will leave for sure without salary retention, but some unknown salary might come back in the trade.

If they need more capspace and can't trade him away, I would consider buying out Drouin for another 3.2M.

I know it's not a very popular opinion but I would consider under MSL's guidance, Drouin at center one last time. Dvorak moves to his LW so that he can take most draws and Anderson on the RW and to be the F1.

So that would leave

Caufield-Suzuki-Gallagher
Dvorak-Drouin-Anderson
Pitlick-Evans-Hoffman
Byron-Poehling-Armia

As active as you want him to be in FA
Hughes already said in answer to Bergeron Rumors and other former clients
"i wont be signing term or committing resources towards older UFA's"

Unless its a cheap deal under 5m for quality
He's just kept preaching "buy low , sell high"
He's more interested in the Comtois's , B. Ghule's , Durzi's ,Kravatsov, L.Anderson,,ext
Or similar type prospects we got in all our TDL over pays

He'll use next TDL to move out UFA's just the same
Then i think in summer 2024 he'll go big after the UFA pieces we're missing
Weber's deal will be winding down as will Price's so we'll have tons of room within reach

Unless we go with a 21 man roster, sending Guhle and Barron down won't save cap space.

I agree that we should not spend big money on long-term contrats to older players. But if a Johnny Hockey at 28 yo were available, it would be nice to have the cap space to grab him, even if our prime contention years were two years away.