Worst case scenarios are that he's traded at 50% retention (so we carry a 2.35ish million dollar hit) or we buy him out and it's like 700K of a hit next season, 2 million the season after.
But most of the savings their will just go to Sammy.
But yeah, there should be money to work with this summer.
Assuming that no big moves are made and we're just rearranging deck chairs, keep ROR & Acciari but punt some others (Kerf and Holl can definitely go, Lafferty should, Jarnkrok meh, Bunting gone, fuck off ZAR)
Tavares-Matthews-Nylander
Robertson-XXXXX-Marner
Knies-ROR (~5.5)-Jarnkrok
Steeves-Holmberg-Acciari(~1.25)
McMann
Rielly-Lilly
McCabe-Brodie
Gio-Timmins
Schenn
Sammy (~3)
Woll
I've got that in at about 75-76 million (so about 7-8 million in cap) but with no obvious 2C's available.
Possible trade targets (not opinions/suggestions on the players, just lining up players who could theoretically fill the role of 2C and might be available)
Kadri: 7M x a lot
Nuge: 5.1M x a lot
JT Miller: 8M x a lot
Brock Nelson: 6M x 2
B Schenn: 6.5 x 5
D Strome: 5x5
PLD: RFA
Kuznetsov: 7.8x2
Hayes: 7.1x3
Compher: UFA
Jenner: 3.75x3
Pageau: 5Mx3