What does this trade mean?

It means the Hawks now have $2.3MM in cap space for next season, with 13 players signed. If this number seems too low, visit my last post for an explanation (hint: bonus cushion penalty). It means the Hawks now have the cap space to qualify (and re-sign, if they are so inclined) Andrew Ladd, Antti Niemi, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Jack Skille. I assume they will do this. I don't know enough about Skille, so I will leave him out of my calculations (assuming he will be more expensive than the generic minimum wager employees I will use to fill out the roster after I play Bowman and make the rest of the necessary changes). Let's say Bowman re-signs Ladd, Niemi and Hjalmarsson at $2.75MM, $3MM and 2.25MM, respectively.

That puts them $5.7MM over the cap, with 16 players signed.

I know, I know. Bury Huet in the AHL. Promote Crawford. Okay. Recalculating... All right. Now it's only $890K over the cap, with 16 players signed. Let's fill out the roster with minimum wagers, call it $700K per player. Four time $700K is $2.8MM, so add that in, and you get...

$3.7MM over the limit, but with a full roster. So, there are still one or two moves left to make. Off the top of my head, they can (pick one):

• Buy out Campbell. That will do it.
• Trade one of Sharp, Ladd, Bolland or Versteeg AND one of Brouwer or Kopecky...for picks.
  
• Trade Hossa, getting no more than roughly $1.5MM in salary back.
  

As I've said before, I would buy out Campbell. That's the cleanest. Except for the $2MM+ cap hit until 2022.