what comes off the books this year? almost 20 mil? what needs to be replaced? a couple of wingers and a center? Korchinski or Lev should be able to replace Martinez next year possibly? Will Cole Guttman get another shot? if most of the pieces leaving can be replaced(in house) then that's a lot of money to toss at one player.
Donato, Maroon, Smith, Athanasiou are UFA. Kurashev is RFA. Some other free agents at AHL level, including Guttman who is RFA.
Martinez is UFA. Crevier and Kaiser are RFA.
Soderblom is RFA. Mrazek and Broissoit are both signed for one more year.
I'd like to see Guttman get one more chance to kick the tire around there. I don't think Kurashev is going to be back. I'm not sure about Kaiser, but I think he'd be more likely to be traded than just unqualified. I'd expect Crevier back. They'll probably look to move one of the goalies in order to re-sign Soderblom to a backup goalie contract.
Donato is only UFA who is maybe re-signed if not traded before the deadline.
Foligno, Dickinson, Mikheyev, Murphy, Brodie, Mrazek and Broissoit will all be vets heading into the last year of their deal, and then a boatload of RFAs to be, Bedard, Nazar, Reichel, Dach, Allan, Del Mastro, Korchinski, and Commesso at AHL level (so should decide at that point if he's part of the future or not). So that summer is going to be a bit of a spending spree as is.
So I don't necessarily agree that just because cap space is overly plentiful right now, the Hawks shouldn't have an eye on. The big ticket free agents this summer are in a semi-weird spot where they'll get the benefit of the rising cap on their contracts but a lot of their peers will still have multiple years left on their flat cap deals. So they're not going to be overly desirable in the short terms as whomever gets them is going to be jealous looking at teams that are getting better bang for their buck on UFA deals, and then once you turn the halfway point on the deals, it starts to be a question of to what extent they age and if they're still useful players in their primes.
You also worry about the "internal cap" on the perspective of RFAs. It's easier to get good young guys locked in at 8 years at a reasonable percentage coming off their ELCs if they don't see a guy only as good or worse on their team making top 5 player money.