Not sure I understand the logic of saying successful teams are or will “pay the price” with cap issues. Like no shit? Just like they “pay the price” of winning a lot by picking lower in the draft. Managing the cap is like lots of other risks GM’s manage…if you think the risk puts you closer to championship you take it. So in that sense Jr Fischer is right…it’s not as much about the cap itself as it is about what kind of players and team you built while putting your team in cap hell. If you built a great team and have success to show for it, you take whatever future risk that comes with. If your team sucked, then you’ve potentially prolonged the suck. But how is that much different than a GM making bad trades or not hitting on draft picks?
The people who insist that cap troubles will always doom a team no matter what are way over the top. It depends on a host of factors.
No one said doom about good teams other than the guy you’re defending because he doesn’t try to understand other people’s arguments.
It’s budgeting. That involves planning, sacrifices, problem solving, luck, keeping a lookout of new solutions, etc.
Traditionally top contenders have cap crunch problems, it’s just part of the process. Some handle it better than others.
It’s a bad thing, like flat out terrible management, when you get into cap trouble without being good. That’s why Jim Benning has gotten mentioned, he’s a prime recent example of that.
Cap crunched teams don’t keel over. They doesn’t burst into flames. They don’t lose all their best players. They do lose players though. They can’t sign non-minimum salary UFAs to fill in holes in the roster either. They often play with a reduced roster during a season because they can’t afford call-ups. They can’t accrue cap space during the season if they cap out.
The recent Rangers recent cap crunch helped get Gorton fired, he was criticized for the lack of depth on a team that lacked depth because it had 20m of dead cap space. They had a bunch of buyouts dragging them down.
In the next three seasons after 2022-23 the salary cap can only go up a maximum of 1m a year. So the highest the Cap could be in 2025-26 is 85.5m.
The Rangers are still squeezed hard right now and it’s going to get worse as their kids on ELC become RFAs.
They likely can’t keep any of their very helpful TDL acquisitions. Not being able to keep Copp would particularly hurt but the rumor is he wants as big a payday as he can get.
If Strome will take a discount they might be able to keep him, if he won’t do that then even he will be hard to keep. I think he might take a AAV discount for more term though.
Kakko needs a deal and as does Georgiev (or they need a new back-up goalie) this off-season.
Next season Miller, Chytil and Lafreniere need new deals. They will have ~3.4m of extra space as the last of the dead cap finally frees up. (That dead space included 12 years of a cap hit from the Brad Richard contract buyout in 2014. Truly an End of an Era.). Lindgren needs a new deal for 2024-25.
The Rags have a bunch of big contracts. They have 6 players making 49.8m which leaves 32.8m (w/ a 82.5m cap) for the rest of the ~17 players on the roster. That’s where budgeting comes in.
