Teams in Cap Hell for 2023/2024

[Nuckster]

Given the draft is coming up, as is Free Agent Season just after, I thought this would be a useful discussion. If its a repeat happy to have it deleted by mods.

From my review, some really significant teams are going have serious issues next year. And by cap hell, I don't mean up against the cap, but able to be compliant (but unable to make moves) like Vancouver. Rather, high end teams who have so little cap they won't even be able to fill out their rosters without selling off assets, or paying other teams to take cap.

In no particular order, all according to Cap Friendly

Boston
$77.4 mil in Cap, around 6 in cap space, assuming 83 mil cap
14 players signed. Assuming you need about 24 min on your roster - they have 6 mil to sign 14 players. That ingores the fact they only have 28 contracts signed.
My guess is they will have to move Carlo and Taylor Hall to free up room. And no teams will give them full value given the cap issues.

Edmonton
Similar to Boston 77 mil in Cap, 6 in Cap space
17 players signed
Evan Bouchard is up and due a big raise from his ELC which will basically eat up all that cap space.
Who goes?
Yamamoto? not much value and paid 3 mil
Kane? You make a bigger hole than you can fill
RNH? Same as Kane
Maybe you can move Ceci for a bag of pucks but he's only paid 3.25
You can't move Nurse and the worst contract in the NHL 9.25 mil LOL!
You aren't moving Campbell, unless you give up draft picks

Tampa
76 mil in cap, 7 mil in cap space
16 players signed
Backup goalie needed
Killorn is a UFA so he's gone
Tanner Jeanot is a RFA coming off his ELC so he's due a raise
Cernak salary goes up to 5.2, Sergachev goes up to 8.5 - does one of them have to be moved?

Minnesota
75 mil in Cap, 9 mil in cap space (900k LTIR)
15 players under contract
Dumba and Klinberg UFA's so 2 big holes in their D

Las Vegas
80 mil cap, 3 mil in cap space
20 roster players signed
Aiden Hill is a UFA
Not sure what's up with Lehner but if he comes off LTIR they are 2 mil over the cap
Barbashev, Bleuger, Kessell UFA's - those are holes that have to be filled
Not the worst of the bunch but still will have to make some moves and will lose key good pieces.


As mentioned I left Vancouver off because once they get to LTIR, they are cap compliant and have no roster spots they have to fill. These other teams have little cap and alot of roster spots to address.

Curious to hear other's thoughts, and maybe other teams?

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[Five Alarm Fire]

You have to account for Seabrook's LTIR with Tampa, but still not a great situation. Killorn is definitely gone, and potentially Colton if they can't negotiate a deal.

 

[Nuckster]

You have to account for Seabrook's LTIR with Tampa, but still not a great situation. Killorn is definitely gone, and potentially Colton if they can't negotiate a deal.

Yes fair point, so they really are at 75 mil in cap, meaning 6 mil or so in space

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[North Cole]

Given the draft is coming up, as is Free Agent Season just after, I thought this would be a useful discussion. If its a repeat happy to have it deleted by mods.

From my review, some really significant teams are going have serious issues next year. And by cap hell, I don't mean up against the cap, but able to be compliant (but unable to make moves) like Vancouver. Rather, high end teams who have so little cap they won't even be able to fill out their rosters without selling off assets, or paying other teams to take cap.

In no particular order, all according to Cap Friendly

Boston
$77.4 mil in Cap, 6.01 in cap space
14 players signed. Assuming you need about 24 min on your roster - they have 6 mil to sign 14 players. That ingores the fact they only have 28 contracts signed.
My guess is they will have to move Carlo and Taylor Hall to free up room. And no teams will give them full value given the cap issues.

Edmonton
Similar to Boston 77 mil in Cap, 5.97 in Cap space
17 players signed
Evan Bouchard is up and due a big raise from his ELC which will basically eat up all that cap space.
Who goes?
Yamamoto? not much value and paid 3 mil
Kane? You make a bigger hole than you can fill
RNH? Same as Kane
Maybe you can move Ceci for a bag of pucks but he's only paid 3.25
You can't move Nurse and the worst contract in the NHL 9.25 mil LOL!
You aren't moving Campbell, unless you give up draft picks

Tampa - OUCH!
81 mil in cap, 1.6 mil in cap space
16 players signed
Most of that space or at least 1/2 goes to a backup goalie as Elliot is a UFA
Killorn is a UFA so he's gone
Tanner Jeanot is a RFA coming off his ELC so he's due a raise
Cernak salary goes up to 5.2, Sergachev goes up to 8.5 - does one of them have to be moved?

As mentioned I left Vancouver off because once they get to LTIR, they are cap compliant and have no roster spots they have to fill. These other teams have little cap and alot of roster spots to address.

Curious to hear other's thoughts, and maybe other teams?

Lmao another Canucks fan driveby. A useful discussion is that RNH creates a bigger hole than he can fill at 5M?

I get that the guy had a poor playoff showing, but if you think you can improve on RNH in UFA or trade for the same cap hit, I'd like to hear this solution.

Bouchard is going to take Yamo's money and be bridged. As it stands the aggregate cap hit of 76.6M (not sure where the 77.4M comes from) has 7D on it (without Bouch) which makes no sense. Kostin, Bjug, Bouch, McLeod will be resigned but if one of those is gone it's Bjug, the others are RFA. Niemo and VD fight to the death for the 7D rotation and you would hope that Bouch takes the next step and can figure himself out away from Ekholm so we can put Broberg there. That puts Kulak/Ceci on the bottom pair with odd minutes from one of the aforementioned.

Yamo, Shore, Janmark, and Ryan are gone. If we could keep one I'd opt for Ryan on the cheap because he has more utility than the others and that puts you at 12F, highly doubt he's getting a meaningful raise in UFA at 36. The team can finally bank capspace because Klefbom is gone and we don't need to limp around in the LTIR pool all season anymore so there are legitimate trade deadline options with retention.

LOLNURSETHO!

 

[Nuckster]

Lmao another Canucks fan driveby. A useful discussion is that RNH creates a bigger hole than he can fill at 5M?

I get that the guy had a poor playoff showing, but if you think you can improve on RNH in UFA or trade for the same cap hit, I'd like to hear this solution.

Bouchard is going to take Yamo's money and be bridged. As it stands the aggregate cap hit of 76.6M (not sure where the 77.4M comes from) has 7D on it (without Bouch) which makes no sense. Kostin, Bjug, Bouch, McLeod will be resigned but if one of those is gone it's Bjug, the others are RFA. Niemo and VD fight to the death for the 7D rotation and you would hope that Bouch takes the next step and can figure himself out away from Ekholm so we can put Broberg there. That puts Kulak/Ceci on the bottom pair with odd minutes from one of the aforementioned.

Yamo, Shore, Janmark, and Ryan are gone. If we could keep one I'd opt for Ryan on the cheap because he has more utility than the others and that puts you at 12F, highly doubt he's getting a meaningful raise in UFA at 36. The team can finally bank capspace because Klefbom is gone and we don't need to limp around in the LTIR pool all season anymore so there are legitimate trade deadline options with retention.

LOLNURSETHO!

I literally said, moving RNH would cause the same issue as Kane, where I said you're creating a bigger hole than you can fill

And its great to shift money around, who is going to fill in the rest of the roster? That's the problem. AHL'ers? Oilers already showed they don't have enough depth.

 

[North Cole]

I literally said, moving RNH would cause the same issue as Kane, where I said you're creating a bigger hole than you can fill

But please, spaz away and write a dissertation in anger before reading.

smh

Yes, which eas entirely the point, if you can't getting better options, why even bring them up??? It's like - "Oh no McDrai make 20M and the team is in cap trouble, how do you make the team better?' Obviously you don't bring them up because they aren't an issue, so if you agree RNH and Kane as close enough to best in slot, why bring them up?

I mean, I wrote three sentences showing how irrelevant it was, not sure that qualifies as a spaz, but by all means use that to deflect the rest of the post that dealt with your "concerns". Smh is right. You even hedged the bottom of your post with, "I left my team out because we are cap compliant", while ignoring being at the cap and not even making the playoffs multiple years in a row, is a problem in and of itself.

 

[Nuckster]

Yes, which eas entirely the point, if you can't getting better options, why even bring them up??? It's like - "Oh no McDrai make 20M and the team is in cap trouble, how do you make the team better?' Obviously you don't bring them up because they aren't an issue, so if you agree RNH and Kane as Best in slot, why bring them up?

I mean, I wrote three sentences showing how irrelevant it was, not sure that qualifies as a spaz, but by all means use that to deflect the rest of the post that dealt with your "concerns". Smh is right. You even hedged the bottom of your post with, "I left my team out because we are cap compliant", while ignoring being at the cap and not even making the playoffs multiple years in a row.

I was asking the question of how you fix it since those players you can't really move either without making the team worse - that's why its kinda cap hell right? drrr

[mod]

Have a nice day

 

[BoHorvat 53]

The Canucks currently are over the Salary Cap going into next season (Obviously not accounting for LTIR) any list about a team being in cap hell starts with the Canucks - there's just no way to ignore it, it is a fact. (Just think about how absurd that statement is for a second, seeing this team's track record over the past decade)

 

[wintersej]

Lol the Bruins won’t be dumping Carlo and Hall.

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Thank you for the amazing 9 years

www.capfriendly.com

 

[JaegerDice]

The Blackhawks should be on these teams like a lioness on a limping, sick old antelope.

 

[Hoglander]

The Blackhawks should be on these teams like a lioness on a limping, sick old antelope.

What if the sick antelope makes the lion sick though?

 

[JaegerDice]

What if the sick antelope makes the lion sick though?

This Lioness should be very careful to select antelope with, say, 2-3 years to live tops.

 

[North Cole]

I was asking the question of how you fix it since those players you can't really move either without making the team worse - that's why its kinda cap hell right? drrr

[mod]

[mod]

The team solves the issue of expiring cheap UFA contracts by getting more cheap UFA/RFA contracts. Assuming the minimum projected bump, we have 7.6M of cap (83.5-75.9) to sign 3RFA and 1UFA, or 10.6M of cap to sign 3RFA and 2UFA (minus Yamo). Bouch's comparable bridge is Dobson at 4M.

Bouch (4.5M)
Kostin (1.35M)
Mcleod (2M)
Bjug (1.25M)
Ryan (1.5M) - or let him go and re-sign shore for 1M.
Total = 10.6M (11F, 7D, 2G)

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

The Blackhawks should be on these teams like a lioness on a limping, sick old antelope.

My thought for my Sabres as well. Gotta get a RD from somewhere, these situations present opportunity.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Calgary, who is a non-playoff team so not good.

 

[Nuckster]

The Canucks currently are over the Salary Cap going into next season (Obviously not accounting for LTIR) any list about a team being in cap hell starts with the Canucks - there's just no way to ignore it, it is a fact. (Just think about how absurd that statement is for a second, seeing this team's track record over the past decade)

Umm

I think I said in the OP why I didn't include the Canucks

I will REPEAT IT here for you

The reason is, the POINT is, that the Canucks, when accounting for LTIR are cap compliant AND have a full roster

The teams listed have little to no cap space and have a ton of players to sign to fill out a roster

Yes the canucks cant make moves to improve without trading out salary, but they still have a team they can ice.

The other teams CANNOT even ice a team, I would think this is a problem

Thanks

 

[VivaLasVegas]

Vegas must unload Lehner ($5M) if he is even coming back. Broissoit is UFA

 

[BlackFrancis]

14 players signed. Assuming you need about 24 min on your roster - they have 6 mil to sign 14 players. That ingores the fact they only have 28 contracts signed.

It will certainly be a task filling out that 28 man roster. Or the minimum 24, which is actually a maximum of 23 according to the CBA.

The Bruins have some work to do, but I think it's safe to ignore this cocktail napkin blueprint of yours.

 

[yzerman]

What if the sick antelope makes the lion sick though?

Then a Panther comes and eat the lion.

 

[McShogun99]

I wouldn't say Edmonton is in cap hell but it will be tight and there won't be any big upgrades to start the year. The remaining spots will be filled in by rookies and league minimum players. Yamamoto and Foegele are probably both gone.

 

[Nuckster]

It will certainly be a task filling out that 28 man roster. Or the minimum 24, which is actually a maximum of 23 according to the CBA.

The Bruins have some work to do, but I think it's safe to ignore this cocktail napkin blueprint of yours.

Interesting. I'm curious in all your wisdom how you move out in enough cap to ice a roster without moving out players with significant cap hits?

I wouldn't say Edmonton is in cap hell but it will be tight and there won't be any big upgrades to start the year. The remaining spots will be filled in by rookies and league minimum players. Yamamoto and Foegele are probably both gone.

Yes, but my concern with Edmonton (and shown repeatedly in their playoffs) has been a lack of depth, goaltending and defence. For a team in win now mode they need to make changes. To me they are much like Toronto, too top heavy and are feeling the cost of that come playoff time.

 

[TLEH]

Lol the Bruins won’t be dumping Carlo and Hall.

Thank You - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

Thank you for the amazing 9 years

www.capfriendly.com

I don't think your scenario is necessarily wrong but I think the money is light on a lot of these players. Also dumping 6m in salary and taking none back for average players when you are in a cap crunch doesn't happen that often.

I don't think they have to give away Carlo or Swayman, but I also don't think they will get rid of 6 mil in salary without giving up something with it. Schenn's number I think is light i think he prob gets double that.

 

[BlackFrancis]

Interesting. I'm curious in all your wisdom how you move out in enough cap to ice a roster without moving out players with significant cap hits?

No one can say before we know what they are doing with their ancient centers. If those two, or one of them come back at $1m, the entire outlook is different.

But, my main point is you saying they need to sign 14 players is flat wrong. So is the 24 claim. The max is 23 on the NHL roster and they ran a lot of last season at 22. They've got 14 signed, plus Mike Reilly. They've got around $6m available. Buying out Reilly gives $1.5m in relief. Trading Forbort shouldn't be difficult because trading tall, shitty defensemen with no term is never difficult. If the fates conspire against them and no one will take Forbort, buying out his final season saves $2.9m.

With those two moves, they've got $10.4m free at minimum. If the greybeards come back, they can start thinking about keeping both goalies. If they don't, as I said, the outlook changes completely, but one of the goalies is sure to get moved. Signing 7 or 8 players with $10m is ugly but not impossible. If Krejci and Bergeron are $2m, signing the remaining 5 or 6 to fill out the roster with $8 is tricky if you keep both goalies, but at least they'd have options.

 

[Nuckster]

No one can say before we know what they are doing with their ancient centers. If those two, or one of them come back at $1m, the entire outlook is different.

But, my main point is you saying they need to sign 14 players is flat wrong. So is the 24 claim. The max is 23 on the NHL roster and they ran a lot of last season at 22. They've got 14 signed, plus Mike Reilly. They've got around $6m available. Buying out Reilly gives $1.5m in relief. Trading Forbort shouldn't be difficult because trading tall, shitty defensemen with no term is never difficult. If the fates conspire against them and no one will take Forbort, buying out his final season saves $2.9m.

With those two moves, they've got $10.4m free at minimum. If the greybeards come back, they can start thinking about keeping both goalies. If they don't, as I said, the outlook changes completely, but one of the goalies is sure to get moved. Signing 7 or 8 players with $10m is ugly but not impossible. If Krejci and Bergeron are $2m, signing the remaining 5 or 6 to fill out the roster with $8 is tricky if you keep both goalies, but at least they'd have options.

Bergeron has been playing with injuries and he pushed for one more year. I think him and Marchand crying at the end and hugging it out says the idea of him coming back is silly.

Maybe Krejci comes back

So under your ideas (which I doubt, because in a cap tight league people don't throw around 3 mil for crappy dmen, but for the sake of argument lets accept that). That gives you $10 mil for 9 players to sign. You do know the league min is like 900k or so right?

So basically you take out bergeron, bertuzzi, nosek, hathaway, orlov, foligno, and clifton and you replace them with 900k players and think they're not in trouble? What? And I don't think Krejci is taking league min either.

I guess you're also forgetting that a 24 year old goalie of their Future, who who had a record of 24-6-4 and a .920 save percentage is an RFA due for a HUGE raise which eats up half of that cap room you created.

Even if Bergeron came back as did Krejci, and both accepted 1 mil with bonus laden contracts, then add in Swayman getting 5 mil that takes away 7 mil of your 10 mil you created (which again I would contest).

So now you have 3 mil to sign 6-7 players? League min is 900k

I'm pretty sure the math doesn't work

Math friend math, your math won't work

 

[notsocommonsense]

I literally said, moving RNH would cause the same issue as Kane, where I said you're creating a bigger hole than you can fill

And its great to shift money around, who is going to fill in the rest of the roster? That's the problem. AHL'ers? Oilers already showed they don't have enough depth.

Good initial post OP. That guy you just responded to seems triggered as hell