There is no way the Senators would trade their 1st and 2nd for a salary dump, even if it's a player who is still fairly young. Devon Toews, who was better than Girard and on a better contract got the Islanders two (late) 2nd round picks. That's the absolute maximum you should expect if you're trading Girard to get rid of his contract.
It's also unlikely that Compher and Meyers would re-sign for less money than they are making this season.

Top 10 Protected first and a B+ Prospect for Girard

20 man roster won't work

Well, girard isn't remotely a cap dump and toews only has 1 year left so hard to call it a better contract.

The toews situation is not comparable, he was traded before the expansion draft when many teams had their own protection issues, unique situation

Would need some protection on the 1st for it to make sense valuewise, not sure if it's worth it for Ottawa, but that's a fair valuation

We are not spending a 2nd and a 2023 1st with no lottery protection on Girard.

Try again.

Girard is absolutely a salary dump in this situation (don't want to pay 5 million to a third pairing d-man when you're struggling to stay under the cap), and other teams would know that. Why else would you trade him? Certainly not to get those picks, because the Avs don't care about picks right now...

I am comparing Toews contract after he was traded for two 2nd rounders(4.1m x 4 years) with Girard's contract if he was traded next off-season (5m x 4 years) and Girard's contract is worse, so he won't fetch any more than Toews did.

I agree with what's been said above, Girard isn't a cap dump as a player but we have seen that the value of players that teams can't keep to stay under the cap has plummeted. Pacioretty is probably the best example.

Teams just dont give up big assets for those players right now. At the deadline things will be a little looser, players on IR, teams being allowed over the cap but even then Girard is signed so they have to see him as a piece for their teams future.

the source of this being dater, its no more than click bait at this point

He lost his press credentials from he Avs due to him asking one of the dumbest questions to MacKinnon post series lost to Vegas the previous year. MacKinnon has openly clowned on that question and has 0 respect for Dater

Dater is clickbait at this point with his hockey now failed career. Hard to even comprehend that he would have anything closet of exclusive info on MacKinnon since Mack hates him that much. This is the same guy who tried to claim all the Giroux stuff last offseason, Wild and Blues being on that list of his. then it getting exposed as being 100% fabricated. Like I said hes a click bait guy now

Hey cool, you only quoted part of my response and left out the part about the expansion draft uniqueness.

Girard isn't a 3rd pair guy anyways. He played 21:39 a game, 3rd most for the Stanley cup champs