First move would be to re-sign Hronek, didn't just give up a 1st for him for nothing. Presuming he gets around $7-$8 million, that leaves around $16 million. After that, perhaps there's a sweetened trade to move Mikheyev (though they've been pretty good at getting value for overpaid guys, e.g. Kuzmenko/ Pearson/ Josh Bloom trades), then it's just re-signing depth (first tier to bring back would probably be DeSmith, Blueger, Joshua, Zadorov and Cole, or their replacements). Lafferty and Myers can go, and perhaps they sign Lindholm to a deal after moving Mikheyev, but if they can do that without overpaying, we're going to look pretty good, and we can always kick the can down the road when it comes to future re-signings (e.g. Boeser).
With how they managed free agency signings last season (no big money given out besides for Ian Cole who's a top-4 D), I'm confident in how they've set up their top-6/ bottom-6 pay structure like how Tampa had done it (e.g. big money goes to the stars, the rest can get around a million each). With the core locked up it'll afford us lots of flexibility in who we bring in since UFAs would want to play on a contender.
