Yeah, it's hard to really speculate on much of the off season cap issues without knowing whether or not the biggest ticket guy is going to stay with the Flames or not.
Losing him for nothing will be a pretty terrible scenario in my eyes. The only thing that'll take the sting off of that would be the Flames winning the cup this year. The only other thing that would soften the blow a little, would be if they can at least replace him via free agency by signing Forsberg. I'd rather have Johnny, but Forsberg would be a solid consolation prize.
After that, all the most important free agents are restricted. If there isn't enough cap space to sign them all, and dead cap can't be moved at a fair price, at least you can deal one or more of them for a decent return.
The two tower Dmen would obviously both be very nice to have back, but I don't see any way it's possible, and I don't think dealing one of the top 4 to make room is a smart move. Hanifin, Andersson, Kylington, Tanev is a very solid top 4 to move forward with, and I don't think it's too crazy of an idea to think Gudbranson might come back for a little less money since he's been such a good fit here. If you get him back, you'd think one of Mackey or Valimaki would be able to replace Zadorov's minutes adequately.
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