don’t think our owner wants to pay 27.5 mil overt the next 5 years to let Karlsson play elsewhere.
especially when we then also take on essentially cap dumps all to get a 1st.

You're offering cap dumps for things of value. Yes EK is overpaid but you're fixing that with the retention but not giving anything of value apart from the 1st rnd pick. Reimer is worth a 2nd pick alone. The players you are offering are nearly pure dumps. When proposing a trades it's a good idea to think about what is in it for the other team. I'm crap at it but at least I try. This doesn't even try.

Erik Karlsson could rebound his career in a big market imo. Toronto and Edmonton could both be potential options for that. On another note it is going to take a whole lot more to get San Jose to retain that much money for that long. Retention like that would cost similar value to a late first and Kerfoot but you also are getting Reimer which like poeticnetropy said would cost at least a second. Trading for Erik Karlsson when you have cap issues like most contenders poses a huge risk/reward question. In most cases it's going to be a much higher risk to pay that much for a possile bounce back on his career.