EXAMPLE 3: The Boston Bruins followed Option 1. The upper limit was $64.3M and the Bruins’ Averaged Club Salary or cap payroll on the final day of training camp was $66,086,309, including healthy Dougie Hamilton ($894,167 cap hit) and Torey Krug ($916,667 cap hit) — whose aggregate Averaged Amount was $1,810,834 — and injured Marc Savard ($4,027,143 cap hit). Rather than simply place Savard on LTIR, a move that would have left them with no cap space and a new upper limit of $66,086,309, the Bruins demoted Hamilton and Krug on the final day of training camp, reducing their Averaged Club Salary from $66,086,309 to $64,275,475 — just $24,525 under the upper limit. Only then did the Bruins place Savard on LTIR, giving them a new upper limit of $68,302,618. The Bruins then recalled Hamilton and Krug and included them on their opening-day roster, bringing their Averaged Club Salary back up to $66,086,309, with the flexibility to add $2,216,309 more in Averaged Amounts, cap space that would not have existed without the one-day demotion of Hamilton and Krug. It’s important to note that the Bruins had performance bonuses exceeding the bonus cushion that reduces the figures listed in this example, but they are ignored for ease of understanding the example.
