Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Lime
This is actually an underrated suggestion. I don't know if I would take that much off, but holding 1.75M for two years doesn't break the bank, and Johnny at 5M/2Y, you're going to get a ridiculous return.
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a 1st round pick is valued at roughly 3 million, so retaining 6 million total over the remaining 2 years of his deal should yield 2 additional first round draft picks on top of the regular return you'd expect from dealing gaudreau.
If you retain salary on Gaudreau and take back a major cap penalty in the process you can really accumulate assets quickly and use that retention and cap dumps to meet the floor while you have new assets on ELCs playing through the lineup.
One of the things that made Brayden Schenn worth two firsts was taking back Lehtera's contract.
The flames were reportedly ready to take on the cap hits of Ribeiro or Cam Ward in exchange for 1st round picks so this isn't foreign to the organization if they want to increase they chances of having a rebuild actually being successful.
The Flames paid 2.6 million this year to Brouwer and Stone (3.3 if you consider them re-signing stone and him not playing anyway), so at least the organization would be getting some of actual use from retaining 3 million in salary instead of just lighting it on fire to get out of a couple of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.