- Trade Colton to NJD for 2025 2nd
- Trade Wood + Ivan + 2026 1st to Chicago for Seth Jones(Retained to $7.5M)
- Re-sign Drouin, 5x$3.5M
- Re-sign Kiviranta, 2x$1M
- Re-sign Parsnip, 1x$1M
Lehky(4.5) - Mack(12.6) - Necas(6.5)
Drouin(3.5) - Mitts(5.75) - Nuke(6.125)
Landy(7.0) - Drury(1.75) - Parsnip(1.0)
LOC(2.5) - Kelly(0.8) - Kivi(1.0)
Toews(7.25) - Makar(9.0)
Girard(5.0) - Jones(7.5)
Middleton(0.8) - Manson(4.5)
Blackwood(5.25)
Wedgewood(1.5)
Total Salary: $93.825M/$95.5M. Leaves the Avs with $1.675M to carry 2 additional skaters, for example Prishchepov and MacDonald who are signed next year for a combined $1.581M.
Just as a pretty simple example of how they could make it work with Jones if they get him retained down.
Then in July 2026, Necas, Wedgewood and Manson are the main UFAs with Drury as an RFA. The $8.5M increase in cap would cover both Necas(Say $10M, so a $3.5M increase), and Drury(Say $4M, so a $2.25M increase) raises and we would still have an additional $2.75M from the rising cap alone to spend on the roster...
And all of this is assuming Landy returns and is a full time player pretty much.
The next "crunch" is when Makar is a UFA... But even then, its pretty debatable to actually be a crunch.
That summer the cap will once again be increasing by $9.5M. That will cover all of Cale's raise and still have more money left over. Even if Cale gets $15M on his next deal, that's only a raise of $6M. And that same summer Cale is a UFA, you've also got Girard, Mittelstadt, and Lehkonen as UFAs. So lots of money to work with if they want to bring some of those guys back as well.