Someone is going to pay Wood to be a 2LW. Others like Graves will get bigger deals.

I'm really looking to worry about it, we could get stripped from a lot of parts, but we will likely look at getting 1-2yr LHD to play ahead of Hughes, and like you have Zub (who I would imagine gets term elsewhere) a one year gap-year guy to let Nemec mature another year. Blackwood also has a QO of $4.125 I believe, so he's not taking that.

Tatar also isn't likely to have a great season and take less than he's making now, but he's more likely than the others only that he's older and may want to settle here.

3.36 is Blackwood's QO, but I expect that the Blackwood's time in NJ won't go beyond this season.

It'll be very interesting to see what Fitz does with the defence next season. He could take a risk and just hope that young guys can take on the bigger role.

Sieg-Hamilton
Hughes-Marino
Bahl/Smith-Nemec/Walsh

Has potential to be good, but it's pretty risky and would almost certainly be worse than what we had this year. At the same time, re-signing Graves to a contract like 4.5/5, which I assume is in the right neighbourhood is a lot for a guy that should be pushed to being the 6th Dman in a couple years.

And I can't see Tatar getting a raise, but I don't expect him to be back next year either.

While it might makes sense for NJ to target him . It makes absolutely none for TB to move on from him. Unless they get an offer they CAN'T refuse which would probably be foolish on NJ's part

He's an RFA after this season and will be looking for a bump up from the $1.125mil he's making right now, which TB simply cannot afford.

Capfriendly QO calculator shows $4.125

He's a RFA with a 1.25 mil QO and he's going to be a priority.

If he doesn't get the raise he wants what's he going to do sit out? No. And offer sheets still happen extremely infrequently and are successful even less frequently. So please stop with the Colton to NJ pipe dream.

No it doesn't. It shows his base salary is 4.125, his QO is 3.36.

Sorry , looked at the wrong line when typing it in.

Pipe dream? TB has like 6 forwards under contract for next year with 3 million in cap space. Guys are going to price their way out. You can't keep everyone.

Even if escrow isn't completely paid they have 10,000,000 Colton is going to get a Paul like contract maybe not as long

All it takes is one look at the Lightning capfriendly page to see that they have 3.1 million in cap space for next season.

I'm going to guess Math wasn't your best subject in School.

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/3769079
TBs cap as of right now for next year

How are you going to insult me and then just ignore the fact that that's still a 14 man roster? So Seabrook goes to LTIR, then you have 10 million for 9 spots. Let's say Colton get's Paul's contract as you said, that leaves them with 6.9 million for 8 other spots. Or just as logical a scenario is Colton pricing himself out and them trading him so that way they have cap to work with instead of having 8 guys on minimum contracts. It's not a pipe dream at all to think they trade Colton. I guess management wasn't your strong suit in school.

You're assuming the escrow isn't repaid in full and the Cap doesn't go up the 4 million Bill Daly hinted at.
BTW I never said it was ideal but I could also see them QO Colton on one year then giving the bigger deal once they can for the cap raisr happens tgen

Or you could see them trading him so that way they don't have to pay him and have more money to fill out the rest of the roster? Or is that still a "pipe dream" in your eyes. You're so close to getting the point but you just keep skating around it.