$50mil in cap(factoring in Weber's LTIR) and a whole D core to sign, it'll definitely be interesting to see what BA does this summer.
I'm really interested to see what they do with the blue line.
No one is under contract, but Durzi, Moser, and Valimaki are all RFAs entering their age 24-26 seasons. They all played 19+ minutes this year (with Durzi being at 22:43 a night) with pretty respectable underlying numbers. I think those are the clear 3 priorities to build around while the rest of the group is fully expendable. They each have 2-3 more years of RFA status, but it feels like this summer would be a good one to lock 1-2 down long term to try and get a contract that turns into a discount in the back half.
They have Simashev and Lamoureux in the pipeline for the medium-to-long term, so it appears to me that the goal this summer should be adding a couple good stopgap vets to support the current trio of mid-20s D. Most UFAs that fit the on-ice role will want term and I'm not sure that it makes sense for them to invest 4+ years in anyone at the moment unless it is on one of the legit top UFA targets.
They can take 'bad' money in the short term. All of Cooley, Keller, Crouse, Schmaltz, Maccelli, Ingram, Doan, Geekie, and their top prospects are under contract for 2+ more seasons. Schmaltz, Keller, and Crouse already make enough that their raises (or replacement cost) won't be gigantic cap jumps. Maybe a few million, but it won't be like going from an ELC to $8M.
They are really well positioned to take on overpaid guys if those guys are still genuine on-ice contributors and see their contracts expire in 2-3 years. Given that, I could see them inquiring about Leddy/Faulk/Krug. Krug likely doesn't make sense for them since Durzi is likely penciled into PPQB duty, but Leddy or Faulk makes some sense to me. If I were them, I'd prefer a bigger guy since none of Durzi/Moser/Valimaki are particularly big guys. However, it isn't like teams are rushing to ship out big quality vet D men, so maybe they end up circling us as a trade partner. They have so damn many futures assets that I could see them putting together a compelling futures package.