I keep seeing that we're in a cap crunch, but are we? If we were to sign Pinto to a 2-year bridge at $3.75M per, which is more than fair, we'd be looking at:
Tkachuk | Stützle | Batherson |
$8,205,417 | $8,350,000 | $4,950,000 |
Perron | Norris | Giroux |
$4,000,000 | $7,950,000 | $6,500,000 |
Greig | Pinto | Amadio |
$863,333 | $3,750,000 | $2,600,000 |
Gregor | Ostapchuk | Joseph |
$850,000 | $825,000 | $2,950,000 |
| | |
Sanderson | Jensen | |
$8,050,000 | $4,050,000 | |
Chabot | Zub | |
$8,000,000 | $4,600,000 | |
Kleven | | |
$925,000 | | |
| | |
Ullmark | | |
$5,000,000 | | |
Forsberg | | |
$2,750,000 | | |
| | |
Hamonic | $1,100,000 | |
Korpisalo *retention | $1,000,000 | |
That adds up to $87,268,750 and with the $625k credit from the White buyout, leaves ~1.35M for a 3rd pairing defenseman (assuming we shop JBD out for a pick).
So you could keep Joseph and still sign a guy like Shattenkirk, who'll likely get ~1M on a 1-year deal.
If Staios is able to get Pinto's AAV down even more, that opens up even more room.