I estimated 23M of capspace for next season.
Was wrong, it seems to be 35 million.
This cap situation is gonna be just unreal.
Again, there's no real pressure for raises at all at next off-season. Fabbri already got the only significant raise.
Zadina, Stephens, Walman, Juolevi etc. will need new deals, but those will be moderate RFA-extensions. They are not setting the world on fire with their current production.
Söderblom, Berggren and Edvinsson should be the most probable propect adds. Those GIANT swedes will probably be ready from day 1, and Berggren has matured 1 year in AHL.
Zadina is RFA, and will be for another 4 years. Still, here was a possibility to take lower cap with shorter term. Zadina hasn't proved himself yet, so I go again "Yzerman-styled" a bot shorter term that many would predict. - 2 year extension only.
- This was estimated at evolwing-hockey to be 1.5M for 2 years. His production is not much better than Rasmussen's, think they should get equal deal. Rasmussen does other things better not count on points.
So that's it!
There's no other RFAs getting big raises. I would extend Mitchell Stephens, but doesn't get over 1M anyhow. He is good, still developing young depth, who doesn't really mean anything against cap. Jake Walman could be a bit higher than minimum at 1M ballpark. Don't know about Juolevi, maybe he will be 8th defenceman with NHL minimum.
1. Larkin 6.1M
2. Vrana 5.25M
3. Bertuzzi 4.75M
4. Fabbri 4.0M
5. Suter 3.25M
6. Sundqvist 2.75M
7. Erne 2.1M
8. Zadina 1.5M (estimate)
9. Rasmussen 1.46M
10. Raymond 925k ELC
11. Veleno 894k ELC
12. Söderblom/Berggren 850k ELC
---------------
13. Stephens 850k (estimate)
14. Smith 750k
Vrana - Larkin - Bertuzzi
Fabbri - Suter - Raymond
Zadina - Veleno - Sundqvist
Erne - Rasmussen - Söderblom/Berggren
(Smith, Stephens)
In Novermber I was extending Leddy, not anymore.
Yzerman should be able to fill the holes with some LhD to replace Staal and DeKeyser, but I'll leave that totally open. There's three spots open and Walman could take on. One spot will quite sure be filled with Simon Edvinsson. I just expect he comes in and will steal NHL spot like Seider and never looks back.
1. Seider 863k ELC + (chance for 850k bonuses)
2. Hronek 4.4M
3. XXX
4. Edvinsson 925k ELC
5. Walman 1.0M (estimate)
6. Lindström 850k
---------------
7. Oesterle 1.35M
8. Juolevi 750k
So we get:
XXX - Seider
Edvinsson - Hronek
Walman - Lindström
--------------
(Oesterle, Juolevi)
As for Goalies, there are other options, maybe we do the easy option and extend Greiss, short term again, only 2 years for 4.5M. He could walk whatever, but think we could find carbon copy contract to be brougth in on the same slot, that doesn't change the cap numbers anyway.
Most interesting names at free agent market are Darcy Kuemper and Ville Husso. Husso could give still younger options, and buy time for Cossa to be ready. Maybe trade for Georgiev could be one option.
1a. XXX
1b. Nedeljkovic 3.0M
***
So there is the roster, almost full completed.
This includes only 59.3M in caphits.
It still includes Richard Panik dead caphit + Andelkader/Nielsen buyouts = Total 4.18M of dead caphits for 2022-23. But after that season, there's only 1.055M of these left.
The total cap space:
- Salary cap 2022-23: 82.5M
- Red Wings caphits: 52.8M
--------------------------------
Total cap space: 29.7M
~5 million of that 34M current space will go to own ELCs + extension. Still need one Top4 defenceman and another goalie.
Cap Floor will be 61.0M. To reach that, we need to sign players with ~8M or at least take dead cap space.
You'd give that up for McDavid and love it... Don't even lie to yourself.
