Salary Cap: Pronger's contract and the cap floor

[Blue Goose]

Got a quick question for the Coyotes fans:

When the Pronger trade happened, I was having lunch with a good friend who is the host of a very popular hockey podcast. He was bemoaning the fact that the Coyotes made this deal so that they could reach the cap floor "artificially", and I explained to him that this was not the case - from what I gather, they took on the Pronger contract in order to get Philly to make the deal, and I even suggested that Arizona would be above the cap floor even without Pronger's contract.

So we made a wager: at the end of the season, if the Coyotes remained above the cap floor WITHOUT Pronger's deal, he would buy lunch. If not, I had to buy the lunch. As best I can tell, I've got a free lunch coming my way. I have watched a LOT of Coyotes games this season (and saw them in person in San Jose back in February), but I wanted to pose the question to all of you to get full confirmation:

Have the Coyotes been over the cap floor all year even WITHOUT Pronger's cap hit?

Thanks in advance!

Click to read more...

 

[XX]

Have the Coyotes been over the cap floor all year even WITHOUT Pronger's cap hit?

Thanks in advance!

I believe so. Spent about $56 million in actual salary. Floor is $52.8. Coyotes are projected to be $8.7m over that, so subtract Pronger's hit and that's your spending figure.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

Have the Coyotes been over the cap floor all year even WITHOUT Pronger's cap hit?

Thanks in advance!

Yes, they have, but only just.

 

[mouser]

Yes, by about $3mil without Pronger.

 

[rt]

The deal was made from our perspective in order to dump a light in the ass winger for a defenseman with the ElBees. One Tippett has familiarity with and requested we acquire if available. When this team made the WCFs it was on the backs 220lb D like Derek Morris, Adrian Aucoin, Rusty Klesla and Michal Roszival.

The trend of picking up larger D has continued all season long. Kevin Connauton and Jarred Tinordi are two further examples. Even the primary return for Mikkel Boedker was Kyle Wood.

The inclusion of Pronger was for Philly's benefit. Not for ours. For us it was about Grossmann. And also ditching Gagner. We knew nifty little winger like Domi, Duclair, Rieder, and Boedker were going to make the team and all would likely be more effective than Gagner. This made him redundant and a poor fit in the top six, and bottom six. As such, we needed to move him.

 

[Jacksover9s]

The deal was made from our perspective in order to dump a light in the ass winger for a defenseman with the ElBees. One Tippett has familiarity with and requested we acquire if available. When this team made the WCFs it was on the backs 220lb D like Derek Morris, Adrian Aucoin, Rusty Klesla and Michal Roszival.

The trend of picking up larger D has continued all season long. Kevin Connauton and Jarred Tinordi are two further examples. Even the primary return for Mikkel Boedker was Kyle Wood.

The inclusion of Pronger was for Philly's benefit. Not for ours. For us it was about Grossmann. And also ditching Gagner. We knew nifty little winger like Domi, Duclair, Rieder, and Boedker were going to make the team and all would likely be more effective than Gagner. This made him redundant and a poor fit in the top six, and bottom six. As such, we needed to move him.

It was about us too. If the season went south fast, they would've been able to move out vets and bring up kids without worrying about Cap Hit. Pronger's contract wasn't needed, but it was a safety net in case we wanted to dump salaries like Gordon, Hanzal, Grossman and Boedker. This season went better than expected, so it wasn't necessary to sell off that much.

 

[Blue Goose]

The deal was made from our perspective in order to dump a light in the ass winger for a defenseman with the ElBees. One Tippett has familiarity with and requested we acquire if available. When this team made the WCFs it was on the backs 220lb D like Derek Morris, Adrian Aucoin, Rusty Klesla and Michal Roszival.

The trend of picking up larger D has continued all season long. Kevin Connauton and Jarred Tinordi are two further examples. Even the primary return for Mikkel Boedker was Kyle Wood.

The inclusion of Pronger was for Philly's benefit. Not for ours. For us it was about Grossmann. And also ditching Gagner. We knew nifty little winger like Domi, Duclair, Rieder, and Boedker were going to make the team and all would likely be more effective than Gagner. This made him redundant and a poor fit in the top six, and bottom six. As such, we needed to move him.

This is the exact assessment that I had of the deal as well. It's easy for outsiders to assume the Coyotes took Pronger to get to the floor, but I knew to look a little closer to understand it from the Arizona perspective.

It was about us too. If the season went south fast, they would've been able to move out vets and bring up kids without worrying about Cap Hit. Pronger's contract wasn't needed, but it was a safety net in case we wanted to dump salaries like Gordon, Hanzal, Grossman and Boedker. This season went better than expected, so it wasn't necessary to sell off that much.

And this is almost verbatim what I told my friend when the deal was made - I was expecting them to move Gordon and Boedker at the deadline, and the Pronger cushion would have prevented them from dropping below the cap floor. But like you said, they didn't need it.

Thank you all for the feedback - I'm going to enjoy that free lunch.

 

[Mosby]

If Datsyuk leaves for Russia, do we make a deal with Detroit to take Datsyuk's dead cap space?

 

[hbk]

If Datsyuk leaves for Russia, do we make a deal with Detroit to take Datsyuk's dead cap space?

Depends on offer. 1st rounder. Yep.