its gotta be more than that to dump 6.5m in cap

Hawks easily decline. Dumping $6.5m in cap for two years, plus another $4m in year 3. Hawks counter w/ CBJ '24 unprotected 1st and future considerations back from Hawks.

big no from bruins

No because the Bruins decline as soon as you offer Elvis

Without getting into both deals not brimg worth for the non CBJ teams and being rejected.

In a situation where this is the roster they go into the season with, I think it's still a 50/50 shot at best to make playoffs. Ottawa and Buffalo are both improving and could/should be seriously in contention to make playoffs. Detroit is behind them and this specific hypothetical CBJ team should be better than them, but it's not a big enough gap that they can ignore Detroit. The Isles, Pittsburgh, and even Washington will all still be pretty competitive to some level, and while I wouldn't pick any of them specifically to make playoffs, I'd be far from shocked if 1 of them got in. And all of that is before you even factor in the 7 non NYI playoff teams this year. 1-3 will probably drop out just based on variance and how things change year to year, but every single team in the east that made playoffs this year besides NYI would still be a full tier above this CBJ team.

Long story short, there's just too many good/potentially good teams in the east that some are gonna get left out. Beyond the truly elite teams (depending how many you'd classify there) you'll have a situation where 9 teams are fighting for 4 spots, 6 are fighting for 2 spots, or something in that neighborhood.

Yah, and it's a lot more than $6.5mm; that's just for one year. Gudbranson is $4mm for three years; Kuraly is $2.5mm for two. Now, math has never been my strong suit... But that's $17mm worth of cap relief, yes?

So, the right question is not how much CHI is compensating CBJ for gifting CHI a cap dump of $17mm; but, rather how much they're going to compensate CHI for assuming that dump. I'm not sure an unprotected '24 1st is enough! In fact, I don't think it is.

Whatever you do you have to figure out center position. I don’t think that is it.

So the Bruins big cap-clearing goalie trade is to trade for a worse goalie who will make as much as they guy they're trading? Makes no sense according to needs or value.