I doubt Kent Hughes would retain for 5 years.

Which contracts would you trade to make room for Gallagher?

Gallagher is a cap dump without retention.

He's a leader in that room, they will just keep him. They are under no pressure to trade him at this time.

Historically, how many contracts were traded with 5 years retained?

Lucic, Oilers retained nearly $1M

That was 4 years and $750,000

Ekman Larsson
Kessel

I'm not saying its reasonable or realistic. The realistic option is to have no movement at all.
What I am saying is Gallagher is not a piece that any team will take on without either retention or compensation. He's a cap dump.

Kessel...7 years at 1.2m.

That's true. Geez that's a lot.

I still don't think Kent Hughes would do this. If Gallagher is traded Habs would take the equivalent in return. For example a trade with Calgary would involve Zadorov ($3.75M) and Dubé ($2.3M), or something similar.

If the cap goes up to 85-86M next summer, i could see Calgary or LA trade for Gallagher.

I don't think MTL would retain on a long term contract.

Gallagher would indeed play on your first line. He's better than Toffoli or any other RW you have.

Lucic has been an excellent leader in the room too for a few years. Does that make his cap hit fine?

Gallagher is not better than anyone currently in Calgary's top 6 and hasn't been for 3 years now. He's fallen off quite hard. If Monahan costs a 1st to dump at 1 year, then I don't want to imagine how much Gallagher costs to dump. The Habs are best keeping him while they rebuild.

We had Toffoli here a year ago. Trust me, Gallagher is better. And Toffoli is your first line RW.

No, but there's no motivation there for Hughes to eat 1m+ on Gallagher's contract for 5 years at this time. He didn't want to retain on Petry on 3 years, he ended up getting him moved. I don't see anyone being interested in Gallagher's contract, so I don't see him going anywhere soon.

Never said he should retain for that long (though to move him he will have to). I'm saying being a locker room leader doesn't negate his bad contract

I agree, I was just saying that they would rather keep him since he still has a role on the team, and his cap hit isn't an obstacle for them yet. I do expect them to try to move him in like 2 years or so as they didn't select him as their captain. Perhaps that means he's not in their future plans.

2 B level prospects lol. Closer to C level at best. Neither of them see the top 6/ Top 4 of any decent team

1 is 23 years old and struggles in the nhl and the other is a 20 year old LHD with 1 point in 26 ahl games