Giroux was @ 8.2 prorated from the deadline on when he returned the 1st, and Tippett. Plus, Philly was rebuilding/retooling. It's a fair bit different than JT and his contract now. Also, his willingness to be traded and the other teams' knowledge of this may not help either.
Honestly, though, clearing $4 or even $5m is an asset in itself, so if they manage that, then well done. But my gut says they will not have the balls even to ask him.
Obviously, this team is better without JT @ $11M next year, I am not suggesting otherwise.
However, I don't see him being moved. He is the captain and took a discount to be here. He had produced and been a good captain and citizen of the organization. If he were to be a UFA this off-season he has the best stats of any FA center on the market. He has not been terrible, just not worth his cap hit.
I think the play this off-season would be
(1) Extend him on July 1st for 3 x $3M contract which makes us all a bit happier with him.
(2) He voluntarily trades jersey letters with AM34 and supports this as Matthew's team.
(3) Trade Marner. He gets us the better return and his removal might be an addition culturally, which I don't believe is the case with JT. With MM out we have a lot of cap space and I am not sure there enough free agents out there to spend that plus JT saving on.
With these three moves we can better and change the team culture quickly. Let's say we take the SN-proposed deal of Marner for Wright and Larsson. That gives us those two assets plus $6M in space. Wright gives us another C and allows us to move Kampf and Jarnkrok, freeing up another $3M in space. Let's say we sign Roy and a Backup/1B goalie with that space. Maybe we get Tsyplakov too...especially if he knows we have top RW spot open.
Knies Matthews Domi
Bertuzzi Tavares Tsyplakov
Robertson Wright Nylander
McMann Holmberg Dewar
Cowan
Rielly Roy
McCabe Larsson
Benoit Liljegren
Lyubushkin
Woll
Broissant
Jones
The following year we integrate Cowan in more, add Minten, Grebenkin takes Tsyplakov's spot. We have Niemela and maybe Webber. Hildeby....and we have $8M in JT savings plus the cap going up by another $5M. How would you add those kids and $13M in cap space to this roster (Woll and Knies need to be renewed out of that).
I think we view this as a two year retool and and we keep JT.