Apparently there was an article fresh off the presses yesterday:
Commissioner also discusses Olympics, CBA at Board of Governors meeting
www.nhl.com
Projected only at a 4.4M increase for next year at the moment. I don't see the cap increasing significantly over 10M in two years.
There is one more question mark to our roster, the Landeskog contract. It could remain as dead cap space, but in best case scenario Landy returns at a top six level player or we use the 7M to grab a fifth top six player. Oh and I forgot LOC raise goes in effect NEXT season so that's 1.5M raise for him.
So roster would be something like:
Landeskog / 7M forward - MacKinnon - Rantanen
Nichushkin - Mittelstadt - LOC
Wood - 1M forward- 1M forward
1M forward - 1M forward - 1M forward
Makar - Toews
Girard / 5M defenseman - Manson replacement 4.5M
1M defenseman - 1M defenseman
5M goalie
1M goalie
I miscalculated the 1G raise, Blackwood makes around 2.5M now so adding 4M to that would help us get a 6.5M goalie, but I also forgot the LOC raise and we're back to a 5M goalie.
There's also the issue of where to get replacement players that are good enough for those cap hits.
If we could sign Rants/Makar to 11M and 13M instead of 13M and 15M, we would have enough to keep either Lehkonen or Drouin in addition to the roster above.
If we let Rants walk instead of paying 13M, we'd have enough to keep Lehkonen, Drouin, Colton or equivalent, and then an extra 4M to use on other positions. I guess you could forget about center depth and instead put the Colton money and the remaining money towards a top six forward at 7M. Would be more like this:
Landeskog / 7M forward - MacKinnon - Nichushkin
Lehkonen - Mittelstadt - 7M forward
Wood - 1M forward - LOC
1M forward - 1M forward - 1M forward
Markar - Toews
Girard / 5M defenseman - Manson replacement 4.5M
1M defenseman - 1M defenseman
5M goalie
1M goalie
Generally I'd like to keep everyone who's been good for us rather than hope we find a better player for the same price. In any case cuts will have to be made, so it's not like we are free to give out favorable deals.