If cap goes down for 2006-07 season, who might be in trouble?

[Kill 'Em All]

FYI, there's about 6 teams (from what i managed to figure out) that already have cap hits in the $23-27 mil range (
source ):

Canadiens - 10 players signed -- need to re-sign koivu, ryder, ribeiro,
Canucks - 7 -- need to re-sign jovo, and the sedins
Devils - 10 -- they already have to get under the cap for this year
Flyers - 11 -- need to re-sign johnsson, gagne, pitkanen
Lightning - 11 -- have to re-sign richards, kubina, grahame


make your own conclusions.

 

[jeffbear]

I talked with Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford yesterday and he said that the Canes are pegging the probable Cap number for 2006-07 at somewhere between $32 million and $36 million based on announced league-wide revenue generating deals thru the XM Radio deal. He sees no possible way that the Cap could increase and figures that the escrow accounts for this season will almost certainly end up staying in the owners' hands.

Not the popular view I know ... but this is what the Canes predicated their budget on for this season. If they are wrong, then it's not as big a deal as if they were wrong in terms of being too optimistic. Rutherford also thought that all 30 teams would be within 95% of whatever the Cap ends up being by the end of year two of the CBA.

 

[damoose212001]

If cap limit goes down, i can see few teams having problems with cap. This is just speculation and lot will happen in 12 months, but just wanted to do this, to see, which teams might be in troubles. Here's few teams i might see having problems.

I was thinking maybe Pittsburgh. Lot young players who might have good year and wants more money and they also bought some high profile ufas which will take nice amount of cap space etc. Gonchar,Palffy, but we might not see Lemieux after this year, so it frees some cap space for them.

Flyers, After signing Rathje,Hatcher and Forsberg. It takes at least 10 million away their cap space and they need to sign Gagne etc.

Anaheim, Scott Niedermayer,Giguere and Fedorov will take easily over 10 million off their cap space already.

Atlanta, might be some kind of problems too, it depends lot, how much is Kovalchuk going to get?

Boston, They will have hard times, when Patrice Bergeron and Raycroft wants more money.

Joe Thornton Re-signed RFA (Boston) $6.666 million
Glen Murray Re-signed UFA (Boston) $4.15 million
Alexei Zhamnov UFA (Philadelphia) $4.1 million
Sergei Samsonov Re-signed RFA (Boston) $2.77 million

4 players take off their cap space 16 million+. It will be tough time for Boston.

Tampa Bay

Martin St. Louis Re-signed RFA (Tampa Bay) $6.5 million
Vincent Lecavalier Re-signed RFA (Tampa Bay) $6 million
Brad Richards $3.401 million

If Brad Richards wants raise for his salary , Tampa Bay will be some kind of troubles.

Colorado

Colorado Will have also hard times, they need to sign John-Michael Liles,Aebischer,Tanguay etc for longer term deals, and hopefully for cheap.

Mario said he's playing at least 2-3 more years, and out top notch young guys still have plenty of time left on their contract, the only real trouble is Malone, and possibly Orpik depending if he already signed a multiyear deal, or if it was just a one year deal. But off that, Malone isn't looking for too much I don't think, 1-2 million maybe? Just dump off Andre Roy if we really need to, evem though we don't.

 

[Captain Ron]

Mario said he's playing at least 2-3 more years, and out top notch young guys still have plenty of time left on their contract, the only real trouble is Malone, and possibly Orpik depending if he already signed a multiyear deal, or if it was just a one year deal. But off that, Malone isn't looking for too much I don't think, 1-2 million maybe? Just dump off Andre Roy if we really need to, evem though we don't.

What about Malkin? If he comes over next season he will almost certainly ask for the max rookie contract. With all the bonuses that would be another $4 million cap hit.

 

[KH1]

The Isles may be in some trouble because between Yashin, Satan, Zhitnik and Niinimaa they have some serious longterm contracts. Plus DiPietro will have to be signed longterm which almost certainly means this is Parrish's last season with the Isles.

 

[Sens4Cup]

Obviously he does, and obviously if the cap goes down, Tampa has a problem. They are hardly alone in that.

No offense, but it does get annoying hearing this stuff over and over again, always from fans of the same team.

Well for Tampa it's not a case of if they'll move guys, as they already lost their starting goaltender. Whether they're able to make due with Grahame and Burke is another question.

But I do take your point. As an Ottawa fan it gets annoying when people talk about signing Chara or Redden next year, when the Sens will certainly sign them. The problem this CBA has created is that guys like Lecavalier, Thornton, Hossa etc. all want top dollar in order not to hit free agency. I guess you'd see this before with Leclair's 45 million dollar/5 year contract and others, but it's happening that much sooner. Whereas in previous years there was a list of 20-30 good free agents any given year, at times there will likely be 80-100 decent free agents out there. Anyways I'm just rambling, but Tampa and Ottawa, and others will certainly be in trouble with a lower cap.

Does anyone know what the protocol is if the cap goes down? Is it possible that there would be a further rollback, hence the escrow of players salaries? Or would it in fact be teams having to cut players? I don't see how a team could cut a player and lower their cap numbers, unless they did another buyout period, which would only really help the players. Can anyone make sense of this?

 

[Sens4Cup]

What about Malkin? If he comes over next season he will almost certainly ask for the max rookie contract. With all the bonuses that would be another $4 million cap hit.

Malkin's maximum cap hit is I believe 1.7 million, 850K base, plus 850K bonuses. If he were to get all rookie bonuses for the extra 4 million,he would have to win the Calder, the Art Ross, the Hart, etc., and if he did, those bonuses would then be paid by the league and not counted towards the cap. The same goes for Crosby, who will not have a higher cap hit than 1.7 million or so for the next 3 years, no matter how many points he produces.

 

[Captain Ron]

Malkin's maximum cap hit is I believe 1.7 million, 850K base, plus 850K bonuses. If he were to get all rookie bonuses for the extra 4 million,he would have to win the Calder, the Art Ross, the Hart, etc., and if he did, those bonuses would then be paid by the league and not counted towards the cap. The same goes for Crosby, who will not have a higher cap hit than 1.7 million or so for the next 3 years, no matter how many points he produces.

Actually that is not correct. Please read the following.....


CBA.FAQ

Entry Level players may negotiate for performance bonuses up to a maximum of $850,000 in individual "Schedule A" bonuses per year (maximum of $212,500 per bonus). A player may also be eligible to earn individual "B" bonuses for League-wide excellence, which will, as a general matter, be paid by the League. In addition, a player will be eligible to negotiate with his club "excess" individual "B" bonuses, subject to a maximum aggregate of $2 million in any year.

The "Excess" individual "B" bonuses are paid by the club and DO count against the cap.

 

[kdb209]

Does anyone know what the protocol is if the cap goes down? Is it possible that there would be a further rollback, hence the escrow of players salaries? Or would it in fact be teams having to cut players? I don't see how a team could cut a player and lower their cap numbers, unless they did another buyout period, which would only really help the players. Can anyone make sense of this?

There are no further rollbacks, but there may be end-of-season givebacks due to escrow and the league wide 54% cap, but those will not have any affect on the team caps during the season. The caps are based solely on the previous seasons revenues, not player costs.

If the cap goes down for the following season, teams will have to get under the new cap by Oct 1 of the next year, either by trades, buyouts, or letting RFAs and UFAs walk. NHL Contracts are guaranteed, so you can't just cut players like the NFL - you either let them walk (and don't resign them) if their contracts are expired or you buy them out. Remember there are always a significant number of contracts that expire every year. Buyouts will be the path of last resort. Unlike this offseason, buyouts will count against the cap, although a smaller annual cap hit - 2/3's the dollars paid out over 2x the remaining years, so the annual cap hit is only 1/3 of his pre-buyout cap liability.