Wasn't McDonagh carrying close to $7M in AAV? Plus Palat's salary gets freed up.
I just looked up ... Sergachev is an extension, so that $8.5M doesn't kick in until NEXT year. He's still only a $4.8M cap hit for this season. They basically just told Ian Cole (or Alex Kilorn) and his $3M (or $4.4M) salary for this year (they're both UFAs next year), "we're not re-signing you next season and giving your salary to Sergachev".
But man... that's now six players in the 8.5ish AAV range (along with Point, Kuch, Stammer, Hedman, Vasi). $55mish tied up in 6 players. $30Mish for the other 17 players. Wow. And I thought the Leafs 'core four' made the team top heavy!
Edit... tack on Cirelli at $6.25AAV! (for 8 years). That team has a "Magnificent 7". Though, Stammer only has 2 years left on his contract.
But, 2024 is the year that escrow is supposedly all paid up, and the cap will be going up a crap-ton. Lots of contracts are lined up to end that summer.