I wonder if this deal means we don’t sign Teuvo or any other forward to more than like a $1.5 million, one year contract. Nazar may start the year in Rockford, but Landon Slaggert should be in the NHL, and if any prospects are ready to come from Rockford the room gets very crowded.

I wouldnt think so. For one thing hawks would still need to add some salary to be comfortably above the floor but I think mikheyev is more of the tyler johnson replacement. Just a defensive forward who can chip in 30 points.

It does make the forward group a little crowded but Id imagine were just letting a lot of our RFAs walk and using these guys to improve the depth

You won't need Turbo, Mikheyev can play with Bedard

With Mikheyev, we're $5.25 million below the cap floor. That's without counting Sam Lafferty, whoever end up as 3rd pairing defense, or players 21-23 on the roster. We won't have to sign a big name free agent to hit the cap floor. But I suppose even if we sign Teuvo we've only got 13 forwards, and it's unlikely that each healthy all season long. If Hayes, Dach, Lardis, or anyone else in Rockford earns a promotion we could presumably trade Hall, Donato, or Athanasiou. I 'd be surprised to see two more big forward acquisitions, but I suppose one makes sense.

You generally want to be multiple million over the cap floor so you have room to sell guys at the deadline and such. But agreed I think theres enough flexility to add one more 6 top guy and still give Nazar/Slaggert/Dach their shot with the big club if they earn it.

That's true-- being right at the floor could cause issues in case of injury too. I don't think that's a big factor, though, because it would be really easy to sign someone to a multimillion dollar deal and send them to the AHL midesason or to be a middleman on a trade for basically nothing. Put another way, they might as well use the cap space they have, but they're now close enough to the cap floor where spending more money isn't really any sort of concern.