What's the point of trading Lehner ? LTIR doesn't count against off-season cap cushion

Same reason they wanted the Weber contract gone. It's a pain to LTIR someone at the start of the season when you have everyone locked up and few AHL call ups.

You mean for 50 team contracts? Weber is profitable for a team to have due to insurance, that's why Zona valued that trade.

And Vegas paid them a 5th to get rid of it

Signing marchessault until hes 40?

I don't think they traded for hertl to play wing.

I think they did tbh. Stephenson at C with Stone is the best chemistry on the team. Roy looks great as a top 9 C but he either has to move back to 4C or play wing. Someone has to play W...

Letting the conne smythe winner go after another career year doesn't seem to be a better option than giving him a long term to get his AAV down.

I will give you credit, you created a reasonable path to keeping Hanafin, Marchessault, and Stephenson without making totally unreasonable contracts. However, there is a razor-thin margin for error. Any of those contracts is higher, this won't work. Any of those guys get short term injured (not LTIR) or get suspended and you will struggle to ice a full roster. And the cap dumps could cost assets. I still just don't get the Hertl trade for Vegas. Good player, good trade, but it makes the cap so much harder to deal with.

I'm perfectly fine with losing Stephenson too. More cap for bringing back Martinez on a 35+ contract with bonuses, and room for Brisson etc.

That sounds more realistic. We'd love to have him in Boston, and we already know he looks good in black and gold!

Mayo had positive value at the time of that trade because he was on a good NHL contract, he could easily fill in on a 3rd pair [VGK sent Korczak up instead?].

Weber didn't have negative value due to his pay vs insured value in his contract's last years for a cash strapped team like Zona