In thinking about the Florida Panthers, one thing came to mind: if you were Florida's GM, what would you pay to get rid of Bobrovsky's contract?

This is a good exercise because it's helpful in dynasty cap leagues as well. We have all been stuck with contracts we don't want and had to devise a creative way to trade them. So, let's put our GM hat on for a second.

Bobrovsky has five years left at $10M a season. There is always the chance he turns things around – just look at Pekka Rinne's late-career resurgence – but most likely, this is dead cap space. In short, the team receiving Bob has to be comfortable covering $10M in cap hits for five years for a player who will be, at best, a backup goalie. Maybe they wait 2-3 years and buying him out is an option as well. But either way, even if the team were to go that route, they need to be comfortable having > 10% of their cap hit being dead.

Seattle pops to mind. Assuming they don't get lucky in expansion like Vegas did, they're going to go through some early growing pains. Not only that, remember that Vegas wasn't near the cap in their first couple seasons. They didn't get into cap issues until they started trading for guys like Stone and Pacioretty. So, realistically, Seattle could get a bunch of assets, take on Bob, and buy him out in three years if they need to. If they don't, they can just let him play it out.

Detroit also makes some sense here. It appears as though Lucas Raymond will spend a year in the minors, and that tells me they're at least a year away from making a push. After that, they still need guys like Raymond, Seider, and Veleno to get up to speed, which could easily be another couple years. They could be in a situation like Seattle where they don't really need all the cap space they have for 2-3 years and can then make a decision on what to do with Bob.

I have an out-of-the-box idea: what about San Jose? They have had problems in goal for years now and they also have a couple albatross contracts on the blue line. What about a swap of Vlasic for Bob, or Burns for Bob? It could help an area of weakness for both teams if the respective players can find their form of a few years ago, and if not, neither team is much further behind than where they were. That is the type of trade that could make sense in a flat-cap era.

Regardless, something has to be done here. Spencer Knight looks every bit the goalie of the future and they don't need $10M in cap hit for their backup net-minder. And however this happens, it won't be cheap. If you're the Florida GM, what are you willing to give up to get rid of Bob's contract?

*

The Islanders fell behind the Penguins 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2 in Game 6 but reeled off three goals in three minutes in the middle of the second period to seal a 5-3 win, and a 4-2 series victory. The second line did most of the damage as Anthony Beauvillier had one goal and two assists, Brock Nelson had two goals and one assist, while Josh Bailey had a pair of helpers in nearly 21 minutes of ice time.

Tristan Jarry saved just 19 of 24 shots in the loss.

That is really where the problems for the Penguins start and end. Not that they were a juggernaut impervious to any challengers, but .888 goaltending is unlikely to get it done in the postseason.

The good news is almost everyone is coming back. They don't have any cap space, but the only roster players that are UFAs are Frederick Gaudreau and Evan Rodrigues. They should try to bring at least Gaudreau back, but this is a good team that just ran into bad goaltending.

Pittsburgh has Malkin and Letang under contract for one more year, as they do Jeff Carter and Bryan Rust. They also have Jared McCann and Kasperi Kapanen as RFAs after next season. All this is to say, the Penguins might have one more kick at the can for a Cup in the Crosby-Malkin-Letang window. Despite them being capped out, they should be aggressive this summer, particularly now that Brian Burke is at the helm and they clearly need goaltending help.

As for the Islanders, this team has shown a lot of resilience since the injury to Anders Lee. As long as Oliver Wahlstrom can get healthy for the next round, they can match three lines with Boston. The Bruins will still (rightly) be favoured but don't be surprised if the Isles pull an upset.

*

Nikita Kucherov had a pair of assists, Steven Stamkos had one and one, and Brayden Point also scored to salt away Tampa Bay's series with Florida 4-2 via 4-0 win in Game 6. Andrei Vasilevskiy made a few highlight-reel saves en route to the 29-save shutout.

Point's goal, by the way, was an absolute beauty:

Brayden Point is unreal pic.twitter.com/SFvudoPSqp

— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) May 27, 2021

I will have more on the Panthers tomorrow but the Lightning are firing on all cylinders. They need to stay healthy and hopefully have a bit of time to heal some minor knicks over the next few days.

*

As the resident Montreal fan, I feel the need to talk about what's happening in their series against Toronto. Allow me to offer a few perspectives.

Dominique Ducharme isn’t the coach for next year

I don't even feel like that needs to be expanded upon. My evidence? He sat Cole Caufield in the first two games of the series. Anyone who has watched the two games since could say Caufield has been one of, if not the, best forwards Montreal has had. I wrote last week about how bad Montreal's offence is, and the team has four goals in four games. Benching Caufield never made sense and it just showed how poor Ducharme's read of both his team and his players' skills are.

Montreal's defence is bad

This probably needs to be quantified a bit better. What I mean here is they can't move the puck. My evidence? Neither Ben Chiarot nor Shea Weber were in the top third of NHL defencemen *last year* in zone exits with control, and those are two of their most-used defencemen. Having shutdown guys is fine, but having both guys being incapable of moving the puck just neuters your offence. This isn't 1983 where you can get by with maybe one puck-moving defenceman.

As a pairing, Chiarot-Weber are rocking a 31.3 percent expected goal share in the postseason. Without Weber, Chiarot is sitting at 36.2 percent. He is getting absolutely Force-choked by the Leafs. At least he has just one year left on his deal.

It is easy to give Jeff Petry a pass because, well, he's a very good defenceman. But it has been hard to watch this team play hockey as if the puck is a lit stick of dynamite while Alexander Romanov sits in the press box. He may have his issues, but at least he can make a tape-to-tape pass.

Anyway, this entire blue line was built by GM Marc Bergevin and they couldn't pass a VW Beetle if they were driving F1. Something to keep in mind as this team rounds into another offseason where they're probably going to spend assets "going for it".

Suzuki and Kotkaniemi aren't quite there yet

In a nutshell, Bergevin's offseason spending spree last year made sense. A lot of teams were tightening purse strings but the Canadiens are owned by a beer family and they had cap space to burn. But beyond that, it was likely the performance of Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who both had good postseasons last year. Montreal had gone several years without having a legitimate 1-2 punch down the middle, and to have two of them on ELCs, plus Danault in a shutdown role? It seemed like the time to make some moves and hope to get lucky with two good centres on entry-level deals. It didn't work out.

I will give Bergevin some credit here and say he had the right idea. I thought they'd both be further along than they seem to be, KK especially. It didn't really work out but they still seem to be progressing nicely and the team still managed to get Tyler Toffoli on a very reasonable contract. Sometimes, things work out.

There are other issues that need to be dug into but I feel that's a good start. There is no way Ducharme should return behind the bench next season in any capacity, the defence probably needs at least two new additions including one to replace Ben Chiarot (that won't happen, though), and their young centres just aren't up to the task yet. All of those things are fixable to some degree. It is about making good decisions, not bad ones, and that's something no one should trust the Habs to do.  

One final thing: what was everyone expecting here? The Leafs were over 75 percent favourites to win the series and they're favoured to win the Cup more than any other team because of how easy their road to the Finals is. What, exactly, is surprising anyone about the Leafs beating the holy hell out of Montreal? This is what was exactly expected! I just hoped it laid bare just how far this team is away from contending and how bad of a job Bergevin has done for the last decade.