“As long as a guy’s contract is up this year, you can take on salary galore,” said one general manager, adding the one important caveat: “If you want to give the assets away.”

Former GM Neal Smith:

“You don’t want to make the mistake of giving away a guy who will be around for four or five years haunting you, particularly a younger guy,” Smith said. “A smart GM would be very, very careful at the deadline this year unless he can find a deal out there where he can catch a guy napping.”

A team could take on a bad contract at the trade deadline, and then buy him out after the season.

“You could, but you won’t have a very happy owner if you do that,” Smith said. “You took a buyout from somebody else.”

A club cannot absorb more than 50 percent of the players’ annual cap hit/salary in any trade. Any NHL club can only have up to three contracts on their payroll in which the contract was traded away under the retaining salary proviso. Also, only up to 15 percent of your upper limit cap amount can be used up by the money you have retained in trades.

An example of how this works: The Maple Leafs want to trade Mike Komisarek who has a $4.5 million salary cap hit and $3.5 million salary. The Maple Leafs could retain half the cap hit and salary, so $2.25 million and $1.75 million. The trading team would take on the other half. This should result in more trades taking place.

“I’m not sure,” Murray said in an interview with the Citizen. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to, but from the looks of it, with Lundin out for a bit of time, too, we probably will have to do something.”

Murray has already received calls from free agents, and has talked with a few teams about a trade.

“I didn’t expect that question so early. Yeah, it’s right back at it,” Iginla said Monday after skating with a whack of teammates and fellow pros at WinSport.

“I’m really just excited to get playing again and have that opportunity to play in the NHL and compete here in Calgary.

“It would be my preference to stay here, for sure, and play on a good team, which I believe we will be, and to win here. It is home.

“That’s where my focus is, to get ready and have a great season as a team and play well for this team.”

There was no talks between Iginla, his agents Don Meehan and Jay Feester over the summer, and they weren’t allowed to talk during the lockout.

“I’ll be honest, I haven’t thought about those different scenarios. Right now, it’s really just getting ready for training camp,” he said. “Once the season comes, I’d like the focus to definitely be just on winning games. I don’t know with Don Meehan, when he and Jay are going to talk.