I assume you used an 83m cap? So you have just under 10 mil in cap space with 15 players signed. Let's say 9 mil to Point (which is incredibly generous, and probably falsely assuming Tampa can enforce an internal cap and get a discount). 1 mil cap space with 16 players signed. Let's say you do trade miller for that bottom pairing D. 2 mil for a bottom pairing D, and you're at 4.25 mil with 16 players signed. With the bonus overages from this year (up to 1.6 mil), you're probably at around 4 mil if you don't do anything at the deadline this year. I've heard Foote's name mentioned, so about 3 mil with 17 players signed. You have 6 arbitration eligible players; 3 of which are on the NHL roster. Are you getting rid of them and replacing them all with prospects? Even just qualifying them would cost almost the remaining 3 million. Are you relying on them all accepting their qualifying offers? Are you then planning on running a 20-man roster with no extras, and having $0 in cap space? I'm sorry, but this seems like a stretch.
And then yeah, maybe the cap goes up another 3 mil the next year, and maybe you trade Palat to one of the teams he doesn't choose to list, and Callahan comes off if you didn't buy him out when you ran out of space the year before, but no cap space means the bonus overages all get pushed forward to that year, which will be at least 1.9 mil with the 20-man roster, and probably more with the ELCs you need to use.
I'm not sure why a 40-point rookie defenseman that is about to take on more responsibility and apparently excel is projecting to be cheap. Vasilevsky is also arbitration eligible, a Vezina finalist, and one of the most important pieces of your core. Cernak, Cirelli, Joseph, and probably other prospects you bring up will have their contracts due as well, and all I've been told is that they are going to step in and be amazing and shoulder key responsibilities (and in some cases, apparently already have), but that equals money...
Like, it's going to be really tough, and I know you've been hearing this for five years and all that, but it feels like a lot of you are in denial. Things are unlikely to go exactly as you all imagine it will, and it seems like most of you are relying on that.