Value of: Capspace: who has got it?

Diablo2020

Registered User
Feb 11, 2020
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Calgary
I can totally look at puckpedia but I want to hear it from you.

A quick peek at the Hawks board and I see Marner and Lafreniere mentioned within 3 posts so I bring it to the main boards.

How much capspace does your team have and what do they plan to do with it?

Everyone says the Canucks (~15,000,000) are fine and have some space to add but if I goto Puckpedia and sign;

UFA Brock Boeser 8,000,000
UFA Pius Suter 4,000,000
UFA Derek Forbort 2,000,000
NCAA Tom Willander 950,000
RFA Aatu Raty 950,000

Then we're actually over the cap. Realistically we need to upgrade on both UFA forwards, for cheaper, somehow.

What about your team what are we up against?
 
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PuckPedia projects the Penguins to have ~$24.58M in cap space for next season, with 18 of 23 players signed. I expect that Tomasino, Dewar, and Timmins will be re-signed, but not for a combined total of more than ~$4.58M. So this will leave the Penguins with $20M to sign two players.
Furthermore, this is the worst-case scenario. I expect that the Penguins will be moving salary out, perhaps even before free agency begins. I don't know exactly who is going to be traded, though.
 
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I can totally look at puckpedia but I want to hear it from you.

A quick peek at the Hawks board and I see Marner and Lafreniere mentioned within 3 posts so I bring it to the main boards.

How much capspace does your team have and what do they plan to do with it?

Everyone says the Canucks (~15,000,000) are fine and have some space to add but if I goto Puckpedia and sign;

UFA Brock Boeser 8,000,000
UFA Pius Suter 4,000,000
UFA Derek Forbort 2,000,000
NCAA Tom Willander 950,000
RFA Aatu Raty 950,000

Then we're actually over the cap. Realistically we need to upgrade on both UFA forwards, for cheaper, somehow.

What about your team what are we up against?
Buffalo has as fee RFAs in byram, peterka, Quinn, Levi, McLeod, Kozak, JBD
UFA Reimer

Right now signed 25/26 looks like

XXX-Kulich-Thompson
Zucker-Norris-Tuch
Greeneay-XXX-Benson
Malendtyn-Krebs-Lafferty
XXX XXX

Samurlson-Dahlin
Power-XXX
XXX-Clifton
Bryson

UPL
XXX


Dead space from skinner

Cap used is a little over $72M for 10/5/1
If Kossk. JBD, and Levi cost a combined $4M to resign for 11/6/2 at $76M

FYI---benson is still waivers exempt next sesson

They have 19M to sign byram, quinn, peterka, and mcleod.

Ig McLeod is 4, byram is 6, peterka 7, then that leaves 2 for quinn


Quinn is likely an OS target for a 2nd comp.offer

Summer 2026....

UFAs- Tuch, Clifton, bryson, malenstyn, lafferty
RFAs- Benson, Krebs, Rosen
Skinner dead weight goes up $2M( it drops $4M for yrs after)

Cap space will be tight summer 2026 too. Benson could be OS vulnerable
 
Last edited:
Buffalo has as fee RFAs in byram, peterka, Quinn, Levi, McLeod, Kozak, JBD
UFA Reimer

Right now signed 25/26 looks like

XXX-Kulich-Thompson
Zucker-Norris-Tuch
Greeneay-XXX-Benson
Malendtyn-Krebs-Lafferty
XXX XXX

Samurlson-Dahlin
Power-XXX
XXX-Clifton
Bryson

UPL
XXX


Dead space from skinner

Cap used is a little over $72M for 10/5/1
If Kossk. JBD, and Levi cost a combined $4M to resign for 11/6/2 at $76M

FYI---benson is still waivers exempt next sesson

They have 19M to sign byram, quinn, peterka, and mcleod.

Ig McLeod is 4, byram is 6, peterka 7, then that leaves 2 for quinn


Quinn is likely an OS target for a 2nd comp.offer

The Skinner buyout was mind-numbing once they opted not to use the cap space it created.
 
With the cap going up significantly, I think the more interesting story line this summer will be how some teams find a way to reach the floor as opposed to get under the cap.

The only team that might need to make a move to get under the cap is Dallas depending on what they do with some of their own free agents. Other than that, cap space isn't the weapon it once was and I think contracts like Carey Price and Shea Weber actually have some value to trade to teams that need to reach the floor.
 
I can totally look at puckpedia but I want to hear it from you.

A quick peek at the Hawks board and I see Marner and Lafreniere mentioned within 3 posts so I bring it to the main boards.

How much capspace does your team have and what do they plan to do with it?

Everyone says the Canucks (~15,000,000) are fine and have some space to add but if I goto Puckpedia and sign;

UFA Brock Boeser 8,000,000
UFA Pius Suter 4,000,000
UFA Derek Forbort 2,000,000
NCAA Tom Willander 950,000
RFA Aatu Raty 950,000

Then we're actually over the cap. Realistically we need to upgrade on both UFA forwards, for cheaper, somehow.

What about your team what are we up against?
Anaheim has like 36 mil
- likely a gibson trade at draft

RFA (important ones), if PV sticks to his bridge off elc idea
Mctavish- 3 x 6.5-7.0
Helleson- likely bridge deal (not much)
Dostal- 7x 6.5

Could be way off on dostal tho, could be a short show me deal, if we move gibson and want to see what his numbers look like when he’s the guy.
 
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Flyers

Cap space for next season $25.6M. Players to resign Cates, Foerster, Pelletier, York. And a couple of rookies/4th liners. So maybe about 6-7M more. So I'd say it's about $18M cap space for next season.
 
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Montreal's currently at 11 mil in cap space with no expensive RFAs or UFAs of note to re-sign. That will go down a bit due to bonus overages, but also doesn't include the last season of Price's LTIRetired contract, so they could have around 20 mil in avaliable room depending on how aggressive they want to get.
 
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:nashville

Preds probably project to having around $17-18M of readily-available Cap space. Evangelista has come on strong lately to secure a decent bridge contract. Obviously from the 22-man lineup below with $15.43M available, there are a few roster spots that could be easily upgraded on, plus a spare F slot, so you could add/replace another $2-3Mish to that total as well, arriving at the $17-18M figure.

I'm confident that Barry Trotz will seek out a veteran RD. And probably one or two forwards on the UFA market. Finding ones willing to come and play for the basement-dwelling Preds might be a difficult task. So it probably won't be the top guys. He'll just have to put the best cash offer on the table that some grizzled veterans on the UFA market see, and they'll be content to take that retirement package overpayment with lower tax and summers off. :help:

2025-26 Nashville Predators

Forsberg ($8.5M) - O'Reilly ($4.5M) - Evangelista (RFA ?$2M?)
Bunting ($4.5M) - Stamkos ($8M) - Marchessault ($5.5M)
Smith ($1M) - McCarron ($0.900M) - Sissons ($2.857M)
L'Heureux ($0.8633M) - Svechkov ($0.925M) - Wiesblatt ($0.775M)
xxx

Josi ($9.059M) - Barron ($1.15M)
Skjei ($7M) - Blankenburg ($0.775M)
Lauzon ($2M) - Wilsby ($0.775M)
Stastney ($0.825M) - Oesterle ($0.775M)

Saros ($7.74M)
Annunen ($0.8375M)

Ekholm retention: $0.250M
Turris Buyout: $2M
Duchene Buyout: $6.5556M

TOTAL: $80.06243M
2025-26 NHL Cap: $95.5M
REMAINING CAP SPACE: $15.43757M
 
Even the Leafs have a crap ton of cap space. Their entire roster is signed next season outside of Knies (RFA), Marner, Tavares. Assuming Tavares stays him and Knies likely make up the 11M there.

So Leafs would have 14-15M to either sign Marner or replace him with 2-3 forwards
 
This is the first year in recent memory where everyone and their mother has cap space. The Canes have like $37M and we need to sign like 2F, 1D, and 1G. I imagine a lot of teams are in a similar boat.

I see this as a disadvantage to the Canes. Part of what makes the Canes historically successful is they can exploit other teams at the cap to take problems off the hands of other teams for a price. But this offseason? Everybody can do that. I wonder if that will make bad contracts more palatable and less costly to move.

My thought experiment is Dallas and Tyler Seguin. Can they move out from that contract? If so, will it be prohibitively expensive like in the flat cap environment or will it be not painful at all?
 
Could be way off on dostal tho, could be a short show me deal, if we move gibson and want to see what his numbers look like when he’s the guy.
If he/his agent are smart they'll hold off on serious negotiations until after the draft (unless there's a 'too good to pass up' offer on the table). If Gibson is moved, he'll be in a much stronger negotiation position as he will be 'the guy' rather than half of a 1A/1B platoon (1A/1A?)

Personally I'd rather that they'd keep Gibson (assuming that everyone is ok with that & not causing bad attitudes behind the scenes). Who knows, John might be willing to stay seeing as how the team is 'really' close to being able to run hard next year. The two of them splitting duties seems to be working out fairly well, they're both getting plenty of work & also plenty of rest. Keep the same next year & then in 26-27 taper off to more of a traditional backup role (66% D, 33% G) assuming Dostal can handle the bigger load.

They've got one of the better goalie duos in the league, if they can keep them together as the rest of the team grows into strength, it could be very interesting over the next couple of years.
 
This is the first year in recent memory where everyone and their mother has cap space. The Canes have like $37M and we need to sign like 2F, 1D, and 1G. I imagine a lot of teams are in a similar boat.

I see this as a disadvantage to the Canes. Part of what makes the Canes historically successful is they can exploit other teams at the cap to take problems off the hands of other teams for a price. But this offseason? Everybody can do that. I wonder if that will make bad contracts more palatable and less costly to move.

My thought experiment is Dallas and Tyler Seguin. Can they move out from that contract? If so, will it be prohibitively expensive like in the flat cap environment or will it be not painful at all?

The challenge with moving Seguin's contract are his health and NMC more than his contract.

And we're also likely to start seeing more teams that can't or won't spend to the cap.
 
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Flyers

Cap space for next season $25.6M. Players to resign Cates, Foerster, Pelletier, York. And a couple of rookies/4th liners. So maybe about 6-7M more. So I'd say it's about $18M cap space for next season.
We also have the flexibility to put Ellis on LTIR when needed, and that's another $6.25M we can manipulate if it gives us space for someone we want.
 
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Oilers will have about 14M to sign Bouchard, Frederic(maybe) and a few other 4th liners.

Ideally they walk away from both and use that space to shore up the goaltending and defense.
 
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Columbus has over 40 with Voronkov being the only key RFA to sign and Fabbro/Provorov being the only notable UFA's.

Wouldn't be shocked if they throw money at someone like Marner should he make it to FA but the most likely way Waddell uses his cap and assets is to fix the defense and goaltending. Expecting a pretty big summer from Waddell
 
With the cap going up significantly, I think the more interesting story line this summer will be how some teams find a way to reach the floor as opposed to get under the cap.

The only team that might need to make a move to get under the cap is Dallas depending on what they do with some of their own free agents. Other than that, cap space isn't the weapon it once was and I think contracts like Carey Price and Shea Weber actually have some value to trade to teams that need to reach the floor.
If the cap ceiling is the projected 95.5M the floor will be 70.1M, San Jose and Columbus are the furthest away but still well within reach. There are also plenty of big LTIR contracts that can be taken on still like Price and Backstrom
 

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