3:19PM: CapFriendly notes that with Braden Schneider in Hartford, the Rangers have enough cap space today to acquire Kane.

Making the trade today would not leave the Rangers with enough cap room to call Schneider back up. It’s believed that the Rangers can both make the trade and call Schneider up on Wednesday.

11:40 AM: Friedman added, “if you look at some of the reports out there, and I’ve heard similar, it doesn’t sound like the return is going to be overwhelming and when I see reporters tweeting that Blackhawk fans better be prepared for an underwhelming return, you know what that says to me, they are being prepared to really get an underwhelming return.”

10:30 AM: On the 32 Thoughts Podcast, Elliotte Friedman said “I think that if there was any doubt that this was the direction we were moving in, I think that ended on Sunday because no team would enter into a theater of absurd like this unless there was a real reason for doing it. You simply do not do this to your hockey team unless you know you are getting Patrick Kane….the Rangers are trying to get Patrick Kane and win a Stanley Cup, I get what they are doing. Gerard Gallant said that it’s not that bad for Lindgren…so it doesn’t look like it’s LTIR, so depending on whose math you believe, it’s going to be, at the earliest, Wednesday. But the Rangers are doing a dance here and we all know what is going on. Schneider got sent down after the game, he’s not going to play in Hartford, he’s going to be back up soon and I can’t fault them. What is the end result of this? The end result is Patrick Kane on Broadway. I don’t care if people out there hate the Rangers. That is great for the game, it’s the kind of attention that we all need to see.”

Freidman added, “the other thing to that I really wonder is, and I don’t know if we’ll ever get an answer and I’m not the only one asking this question, is how much the owner, James Dolan, the role he played in all of this, because how can you not, if you are him look at that and say ‘can we still do this?’ You know the way he is, he loves the headlines, loves the big stage. You don’t think that he said ‘can we not do this?’ Look at all the shiny new toys that his teams have chased after over the years. You have to think he played a role in this, absolutely.”

He continued, “people were asking me if K’Andre Miller gets suspended, does that come off the cap? No, it doesn’t, that doesn’t happen.”