My main point is that with Hank on his number, lets say we sign
Girardi 6 years 5.5 million per
Callahan 7 years 6 million per
Stralman 4 years 3.5 million per
Del Zotto 1 year 4 million
Kreider 2 years at 2.5 million
And amnesty Brad Richards, where does that leave us capwise for next season?
CAPGEEK.COM ARMCHAIR GM ROSTER
CapGeek Armchair GM Roster
FORWARDS
Chris Kreider ($2.500m) / Derek Stepan ($3.075m) / Rick Nash ($7.800m)
Carl Hagelin ($2.250m) / Ryan Callahan ($6.000m)
J.T. Miller ($0.894m) / Mats Zuccarello ($2.500m)
Derek Dorsett ($1.633m)
DEFENSEMEN
Ryan McDonagh ($4.700m) / Dan Girardi ($5.500m)
Marc Staal ($3.975m) / Anton Stralman ($3.500m)
John Moore ($1.750m) / Dylan McIlrath ($0.703m)
Michael Del Zotto ($4.000m) /
GOALTENDERS
Henrik Lundqvist ($8.500m)
Cameron Talbot ($0.563m)
BUYOUTS
Wade Redden ($0.000m)
Brad Richards ($0.000m)
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CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(estimations for 2014-15)
SALARY CAP: $67,700,000; CAP PAYROLL: $59,843,333; BONUSES: $941,667
CAP SPACE (17-man roster): $7,856,667
Using your numbers, we'd have a little over 7 mil left to spend and still need 5 forwards (assuming Miller and McIlrath are on the team). I think both Girardi and Cally will get close to 5 mil and MDZ will get less than 4 mil, assuming he's even still on the team. So let's call it 9 mil total that we have to spend for 5 more forwards.
We can probably fill a spot or two with rookies. Fast, Lindberg, Hrivik. Maybe even Kantor. Or we can bring back Haley or Mashinter for cheap. That would leave between 7 and 7.5 mil for 3 spots. It's doable, but if we are bringing Brassard back, he's going to eat up a good portion of that. The other 2 spots would have to be 1-2 mil per year guys.
If MDZ is traded for a guy like Connolly, we'd be in better shape, but it's so hard to predict what this team is going to do with so many free agents.