Vegas should take full advantage of retaining cap/salary on bigger money guys and trading them for assets. With a guy like Brouwer, I think you let him re-build his value for half of the season, then see what he's worth to other GM's at $2.25M.
There aren't too many other guys I see attractive for this sort of thing, but here's a few veteran players with just 1 year left on their deals who aren't locks to be protected:
Jack Johnson
Dan Hamhuis
Jonathan Ericsson (3 years - is it possible Detroit leaves Mike Green exposed as he's just 1 more year to UFA)?
Jussi Jokinen
Tomas Plekanec
Marc Methot (2 years)
Paul Martin (2 years)
Jason Garrison
Alex Edler (2 years)
St Louis has a few guys that could work, but they will probably have a pretty juicy exposed list (probably the same case for a few of these teams like SJ, Tampa, etc.)
I think a lot of teams are going to lose quality #4 d-men (If I'm Vegas, I draft minimum forwards and goalies) so they'll be keen to acquire a veteran D-man at half price.
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