BTW our fourth line of Nystrom, Gaustad, Hendricks is not a 9 million dollar line it is not even a 8 million dollar line just thought you should know that.
Ok so roughly 8M over the next 3 years for those three. Myself, and I am assuming others, are counting spaling in there as it looks like he will be a scratch (not even a 4th liner). That's still insanity.
This is what next year will look like, in theory.
CAPGEEK.COM USER GENERATED ROSTER
My Custom Lineup
FORWARDS
Viktor Stalberg ($3.000m) / David Legwand ($3.500m) / Patric Hornqvist ($4.250m)
Eric Nystrom ($2.500m) / Mike Fisher ($4.200m) / Gabriel Bourque ($0.775m)
Filip Forsberg ($1.461m) / Matt Cullen ($3.500m) / Richard Clune ($0.538m)
Taylor Beck ($0.800m) / Paul Gaustad ($3.250m) / Craig Smith ($2.000m)
Matt Hendricks ($1.850m) / Colin Wilson ($2.000m) / Austin Watson ($1.112m)
DEFENSEMEN
Shea Weber ($7.857m) / Roman Josi ($4.000m)
Seth Jones ($3.225m) / Kevin Klein ($2.900m)
Ryan Ellis ($1.500m) / Victor Bartley ($0.667m)
GOALTENDERS
Pekka Rinne ($7.000m)
Magnus Hellberg ($0.925m)
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CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled with the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $70,000,000; CAP PAYROLL: $62,808,810; BONUSES: $3,269,167
CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $10,460,357
10M is a lot, but look at the roster space. We don't have any even for our own prospects that need to be brought up into the NHL. We've created a long term log jam at forward with redundant pieces. What teams are going to be interested in Nystrom, Goose, or Hendricks for their cap hit AND length? Not many really.
Unless, of course, you don't bring legwand back, trade Smith etc and bring in top forwards via trade or FA. The difference between Boston, LA, etc and us isn't depth. We have depth, but we lack game breakers up front and scoring depth. They got it.