Is it legal to loan a guy who is about to become a UFA while secretly having a contract in place for next year?

I'm thinking Phillips and Kuba plus whatever (maybe a second rounder or flipping our Nashville first for their first ) to Vancouver for Cody Hodgson... thus assuring Phillips that he's on his way back here brimming with confidence after the Nucks win the cup.

Now that would be EXCITING. We'd have a group of high potential top six possibilities, plus a legitimate second line centre. With Butler also right, it makes us a little lopsided with so much scoring from the right side but Langeskog is a LW.

Like I said before, if we do this properly and stop saying and believing it will take years, we can rebuild fast enough to satisfy everyone.