I mean technically you could just run a 20 man roster and be compliant. That cuts got to come from the middle the most likely candidates in no particular order Manson/Girard, Colton and Georgiev are the guys making $3M+, a lot will have to do with the Mittlestadt contract, but I wouldn’t mind a Colton trade if it meant Trenin and Duhaime were resigned.

I would think we can get both of them for a little under the 4m Colton eats up. I think it would be a drop from Colton to Trenin, but is what it is.

Yep, this is pretty much what it's going to look like. I think the most likely option is Mittelstadt signs a three year deal around 5.5 per. That way he and Colton will hit UFA at the same time, and by then we will keep one of them and Cal Ritchie will be on his ELC for either 2C or 3C. Sakic did the same thing for MacKinnon and Johnson years ago.

Also, I really want to like Wood, he plays hard every shift, but he has been absolutely anemic offensively and that contract preventing us from resigning Trenin and Duhaime might be a big blemish on our roster.

Since you're a reasonable poster I'll ask you: what are the comps for Mitts? I feel like some people are pulling numbers out of thin air (or using rumors from when he was with Buffalo as a basis for their arguments) for his deal but, IMO, there are some pretty clear comparables (D Strome and Zacha are pretty analogous to Mitts age, production ) and they don't make $6M. I guess he could point to JTC whom he is clearly better than but if they give him the 6th year, he's making more in total compensation. I can see him wanting a bit more with the cap going up but I don't think $5.25-5.75M is at all out of line with his comps but I'm curious if you have other comparable players in mind when you arrived at $6M.

I wonder if they could get someone like Wenny on a "prove it" deal around $2M