Never said a star, but it’ll be a top 6, not a tweener, a legit top 6 RW. Win now, they’re not going to want to take a massive step back next year, not with how their contracts line up for expiry, especially on the backend.
$3.5 million is about all they’ll spend on the top line winger role now. That would literally put the top line over 25% of the salary cap.
The highly paid Marner is out, and has been replaced with Knies, who is literally only making about $3 million less, hence why they can spend that on the other winger. Which means they’d be spending about the same amount on the top line as they were last year.
The overpaid top six days are done in Toronto. Good. Instead of an $11 million dollar winger and a $900K winger we have a $7.75 million winger and a $3.5 million dollar winger. They’d literally only be saving about $650K from last year doing this on that line.
3.5M is not a top 6 winger. Move Kampf and Reaves out, and we have like 9M and change, not to mention Jarnkrok.
Let’s see what Tree can do before opening night; it’s only July 2nd.