Modifié 3 déc. 2023 à 11 h 58
Quoting: Affectionate_Side_64
Right, so what happens next year when Hart, Tippet, Seeler, Walker, Brink and Poehling all expire? Do you think that group will somehow become cheaper? How would you be creating the cap space for the considerable increase in salary those players or their replacements would require as a group? And what about the year after when Konecny, Foerster, York, Cates, Frost and Atkinson expire? Or new contracts for Cutter Gauthier Michkov in the future?
Risto doesn't fit their timeline and eats up a considerable amount of cap as a depreciating player, and you've just acknowledged their cap situation. This should be a no-brainer for the Flyers to get assets back for a player who has not lived up to his contract with them while clearing critical cap space for the future.
They are probably trying to flip Walker and Seeler at the TDL for assets, they will easily be able to replace them in FA, which is another reason why they might want to keep Ristolainen for the year at least.
Hart will take the ~2M they have now and part of the cap rise. Brink and Poehling won't cost much. Philadelphia isn't competing, so the cap motivator for moving Ristolainen would be that it frees up 5.5M for them to do other things with, but if they like the guy enough (I don't know that they do). They also need to reach the cap floor, so if they think Ristolainen has a chance of regaining value they'll just keep him. They will dump him if and when they need the cap, or hold him until they can get more, chances are they could still get a 3rd out of him in his final year as a rental, he'll just be 32. On the other hand, a contender like Toronto wouldn't even give a 3rd+5th for him at 5.5Mx3, that cap is worth a whole lot more to them than Ristolaienen would be.
Ristolainein doesn't fit their timeline but they still need players to play on their roster, and a 3rd+5th isn't a considerable return. If they had cap problems last off-season doesn't mean they still have cap problems now or will have cap problems next year. Right now they are cap compliant, next year they will have like 20M in cap to sign 5 guys. That's plenty of money to sign Hart, Tippett, and 3 other guys. Gauthier and Michkov aren't even on ELCs yet and Ristolaienen only has 3 left.
So, I'm not saying that they won't do it, I just said they probably won't but it's possible, but your reasoning that they do it because they need cap wasn't good.