The NHL’s skyrocketing salary cap has made it much easier for teams to trade away overpriced contracts — provided the remaining term isn’t too long — compared to the flat-cap era. Gone are the days when a team like Calgary paid Montreal a first-round pick in the summer of 2022 for taking on just the final year of Sean Monahan’s $6.375 million cap hit.Last summer, underperforming veterans Andre Burakovsky ($5.5 million AAV), Evander Kane ($5.125 million AAV), Viktor Arvidsson ($4 million), Vladimir Tarasenko ($4.75 million), Erik Haula ($3.15 million) and Miles Wood ($2.5 million) were all dumped to new destinations without their old teams having to attach a sweetener. The Penguins were the only team in the league to extract significant value from any cap-dump deal last summer, doing so twice in separate deals that absorbed Matt Dumba and Connor Clifton.The relatively painless prices for ejecting bad contracts continued at this year’s trade deadline. Anaheim gained a seventh-round pick when it sent struggling 32-year-old center Ryan Strome (only nine points in 33 games at the time of the trade) and his $5 million to the Flames. It only cost New Jersey a third and sixth-round pick to offload the final year and a half of Ondrej Palat’s $6 million AAV to the Islanders.This isn’t to say every inefficient contract can easily be traded but teams caught with a dicey contract have arguably never had more exit options in the cap era.Chris Johnston’s trade board already highlighted some overpriced contracts that could be traded this offseason, including Darnell Nurse, Morgan Rielly, Adin Hill, Dougie Hamilton, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Elias Pettersson.But there are more players on overpriced deals — closer to being a “slight overpay” than an “albatross/anchor” of a contract — that teams could consider jettisoning this offseason. Here are 10 to keep an eye on. Note that the contracts on this list aren’t equal; some of them are actually close to being fair value, whereas others are far more toxic.How to win a Stanley Cup without superstarsHarman DayalBrendan Gallagher, Montreal CanadiensBrendan Gallagher broke down in tears when he told local reporters at the end of this season that he’d be moving on from Montreal.He has spent his entire 14-year NHL career with the Canadiens, but at 34, his game sharply declined in 2025-26, and his role was marginalized. He went from scoring 21 goals in 2024-25 to mustering just seven this season. His average ice time slipped to a career-low 12:21 per game, and he was regularly a healthy scratch in the playoffs, appearing in just three postseason games.Gallagher simply can’t perform at a high enough level anymore to crack the Canadiens’ stacked forward lineup on an everyday basis. Moving on makes sense for both sides —Gallagher probably doesn’t want to sit in the press box as a healthy scratch for games, and Montreal would gain a critical $6.5 million of cap room.In the flat cap era, this would have been an expensive contract to move. Gallagher’s impact in 2025-26 was commensurate with that of a fourth-liner; he’s nowhere close to being a $6.5 million player. However, with the rising cap, and because his deal only has one year remaining, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a taker. Gallagher is an incredibly well-respected veteran with strong leadership skills, which could make him appealing to a young rebuilding team like Vancouver (he grew up in the province and played junior hockey for the Vancouver Giants), particularly if the latter trades its own veterans such as Jake DeBrusk and/or Elias Pettersson in separate moves.If the interest in Gallagher is unexpectedly weak, the Canadiens could also buy out the final year of his deal, which would create $3.83 million in savings for 2026-27 and come at the expense of a modest $1.33 million dead cap charge in 2027-28.Ilya Lyubushkin, Dallas StarsFor the second offseason in a row, the Stars are navigating around one of the most complex cap crunches in the league. Dallas has most of its roster spots filled, but the issue is the team’s $11 million in projected cap room won’t even be enough on its own to re-sign RFA Jason Robertson.That doesn’t even account for promising 24-year-old forward Mavrik Bourque, who also needs a new deal this summer. Bourque broke out with 20 goals and 41 points in the regular season. AFP Analytics projects his next contract to be in the $2.96 million AAV range on a two-year bridge.Dallas will need to make cap-clearing moves, and Ilya Lyubushkin should be the most obvious piece to ship out. The 32-year-old right-shot defender profiles as a No. 6/7 contributor. With the strides Nils Lundkvist took this season and the deadline acquisition of another big righty in Tyler Myers (who struggled in Texas but is on a significantly cheaper $1.5 million cap hit), Lyubushkin isn’t needed as an everyday contributor.