The Sharks will HAVE to be active in Free Agency/Trade market in the offseason to hit the Cap Floor.

With next year's cap projected to be $95.5M, that means the cap floor will be $70.5M,

The Sharks only have $53M of salary on the books for next year. If you factor in roughly $5-6 million/year to Zetterlund and regular qualifying offers for the rest of the RFA class (Kostin, Kovalenko, Thompson), that will still leave nearly $10M that will need to go out just to hit the cap floor.

With the rising cap, it's going to be more difficult to find trade partners looking to send out assets to dump contracts, so I feel the Sharks are going to have to be active in finding legitimate top-6 veteran forwards (ala Toffoli/Granlund) or Top-4 D just to remain in cap compliance.

It's also REALLY early in the rebuild, but going after one or two of the top-20 or so UFAs this offseason would still leave the Sharks well-situated to continue building for the future with their cap situation and would allow the team to make a major step forward next season.