Interesting point. Means Habs are a little tighter but the bonus can be carried over to next year I think (which does not look much better cap wise. Realistically it means the Habs would have to trade Kaberle if Subban signs.
Here is today's "basic roster"... 13F/7D/2G... add your 23rd player as you will and leave some wiggle room for the Blundens and so on going up and down... there is $11.3M cap space on a $70.2M cap. With all of the rookie bonuses included. There is no issue signing Subban at any number. That's what removing a $7.357M charge to Gomez will do for ya...
EDIT: yeah, so don't remove Gomez and it leaves only $3.943M, which means unless you want to delve into the bonus cushion, it could put a practical upper limit on Subban.
CAPGEEK.COM USER GENERATED ROSTER
My Custom Lineup
FORWARDS
Rene Bourque ($3.333m) / Tomas Plekanec ($5.000m) / Brian Gionta ($5.000m)
Max Pacioretty ($1.625m) / David Desharnais ($0.850m) / Erik Cole ($4.500m)
Brendan Gallagher ($0.870m) / Alex Galchenyuk ($3.225m) / Brandon Prust ($2.500m)
Travis Moen ($1.850m) / Lars Eller ($1.325m) / Colby Armstrong ($1.00m)
Ryan White ($0.6875m)
DEFENSEMEN
Andrei Markov ($5.750m) / Alexei Emelin ($2.000m)
Josh Gorges ($3.900m) / Raphael Diaz ($1.225m)
Francis Bouillon ($1.500m) / Tomas Kaberle ($4.250)
Yannick Weber ($0.850m)
GOALTENDERS
Carey Price ($6.500m)
Peter Budaj ($1.150m)
------
= $58.8905M
Then if you want to talk 2013-14...
CAPGEEK.COM USER GENERATED ROSTER
My Custom Lineup
FORWARDS
Rene Bourque ($3.333m) / Tomas Plekanec ($5.000m) / Brian Gionta ($5.000m)
Max Pacioretty ($4.500m) / David Desharnais ($2.000m) / Erik Cole ($4.500m)
Brendan Gallagher ($0.870m) / Alex Galchenyuk ($3.225m) / Brandon Prust ($2.500m)
Travis Moen ($1.850m) / Lars Eller ($1.325m) / Ryan White ($0.722m)
Gabriel Dumont ($0.578m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Andrei Markov ($5.750m) / Alexei Emelin ($2.000m)
Josh Gorges ($3.900m) / Raphael Diaz ($1.225m)
Francis Bouillon ($1.500m) / xxxx
Yannick Weber ($0.945m)
GOALTENDERS
Carey Price ($6.500m)
Peter Budaj ($1.250m)
------
= $58.473M
.... This is basically the same as above, just allowing QO RFA raise to White&Weber, promoting Dumont as the extra forward and letting Colby Armstrong walk, doing our 2nd compliance buyout on Kaberle (or hoping he got traded), token raise to Budaj, $2M to Desharnais... even keeping Bouillon around for fun (but hey, he has been fine so far this year - can always get a cheap vet/subsitute for that $1.5M if needed)... all on a $64.3M cap... leaves around $5.8M to accomodate Subban.
You could keep both Subban and Kaberle by using bonus cushions here if you had to, of course.
Anyway, there's no deal to Subban that leaves us in any trouble. If we sign him for $2M less than he might otherwise get, it's just a bit more money to consider using to spruce up the roster elsewhere, basically... although there aren't a ton of spots where the sprucing is likely to happen...
