I was hoping for $850K. How much budget room do we have left now? lol
Nobody knows what our budget is, but Melnyk has been quoted in the past as saying he puts 68M towards player salaries, and that is roughly what our payroll was at the start of last season.
Assuming Pyatt's deal is 1.1 both years and isn't front or back loaded, we are currently at 62M with 18/23 skaters signed. Our two notable RFAs are Pageau and Dzingel. So after we sign them, we have to pay for 3 more roster players to fill things out at 23.
Unless they go longer term, Dzingel probably gets something in the 1.3M-1.6M range on a 1 or 2 year deal. Pageau probably gets an AAV in the mid 2Ms but his contract could be backloaded making his salary under 2M for this season. Dzingel and Pageau maybe cost a combined 3M this upcoming season in real money if we get lucky, and then the next 3 skaters will probably cost 2.5M-3M combined.
So at this point, if we don't move Phaneuf, we're probably right around 67M-68M depending on how things shake out. Whether that is our budget, nobody really knows for sure.