Every team in the NHL has a little bit of fat they’d like to trim, a little bit of dead weight they’d like to drop.

There are a number of reasons a franchise may want to cut ties with a player. It could be bad chemistry, poor leadership, laziness, a decline or lack of production, etc.

With the salary cap in place, there are also a lot of teams who have put themselves in financial binds and are tied to large contracts they’d love to dump.