I keep seeing talk about potential acquisitions and I think we need to first look ahead at next year's cap state.
We have $40,675,000 committed to 10 forwards next year. Boeser, Hoglander, Suter, Digimon are FAs.
We have $23,350,000 committed to 5 defenders next year. Forbort, Julsen, Freidman are FAs.
We have $5,000,000 committed to Demko next year. For the sake of this excersie I am going to consider a backup signed for a cool 1 million, bringing us to $6,000,000 for goalies.
We have $712,500 retained for Mikeheyev next year.
OEL's buyout penalty jumps to $4,766,667 next year.
This all adds up to $74,504,167 committed next year with 6 open roster spots still.
This year, the salary cap is $88,000,000. Expectations are it will go up again next year - how much is hard to say. I've seen some suggest 5+ mil. For this exercise, let's copy this year's jump of $4 million and set a tentative projected cap of $92,000,000.
I see about $17.5 million to re-sign Boeser/Hoglander and improve the roster.
Boeser could cost from $7-9 million so let's call it 8. If Hoglander hits 20+ goals again under a rising cap we are probably looking at $3-5 million so let's call it 4. $12,000,000 set aside to keep Boeser/Hog leaves $5.5 million for upgrades/depth in 4 roster spots.
Let's say 3 of those spots are minimum cost $775,000 players. You are left with 2,675,000 to upgrade your final roster spot (LD) if you maintain the same roster next year.
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I lay all this out to point out that we really don't have room to add salary next year without losing players we currently have.
Rentals are going to be our targets this year unless we move a larger salary and we have a lot of NTC/NMCs.
Soucy is NTC until next year when it is modified making him movable - I could see us moving him to make salary space then.
Garland is worth his money but you wonder if they might look to trade for value and reallocate the money.
Hoglander being due a raise makes him an interesting trade chip. Personally I'd try to re-sign for an undermarket deal long term but things are aligned for a trade here.
Rutherford's Boeser comments (looking to move him? - "No, no, no.") make me think he remains a piece to re-sign as a top line winger.
We likely aren't trading for long term salary this year. If we do Garland or Hoglander are going the other way to make the cap work for next season.