I don't actually care *that* much, because Matt Gilroy probably isn't making enough, which kinda balances out? We signed DZ to a 2-year deal at $2.55 million per. For that price, 2 years is exactly the right length - it's up the year this team gets completely dismantled anyway (because everyone else's contract is also up), so it'll be a very good time to reassess. If Del Zotto has another two seasons like last year, he'll be much more exposed for it, and he'll be up for a pay cut or pink slip. But the money is higher than I'd have liked.
I wrote last week that I'd want to pay him around $2 million, and I stand behind that. For reference points, I'd look at Anton Stralman, making $1.7 million, and Dan Girardi, making $3.325. I think Del Zotto is closer to a Stralman than he is to a Girardi, as he's often an on-ice liability, despite his point totals. But as you know, I don't rate defensemen on their ability to score goals.
Anyway, overpaying him by $550,000 a year is not bothering me a lot today because we also signed Matt Gilroy to a one-year, $650,000 deal. And if I'd heard that deal was a million instead, I wouldn't have blinked. Gilroy's got a very good offensive upside, if not quite Del Zotto's, and he backs it up by being a little bigger, and a little bit older and more responsible. Right now, I'd put Gilroy on the ice for a given shift before I put Del Zotto out there. So, to delude myself into happiness, I will simplify and say that we signed Del Zotto and Gilroy this week, for a total of $3.2 million. I can get behind that.
Those of you who have been paying attention will recall that that leaves us with $2,141,666 or cap space, with everyone signed. That's not a ton of wiggle room, but it's a bit. And remember that we've got an additional $1.25 million of salary we can use to replace Sauer and $1.25 million of bonus overage we could borrow from next season. So, cap-wise, things are not so bad this season at all.
Is it Saturday yet?
Showing posts with label Salary cap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salary cap. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Salary Cap '12-'13
OK, so let's crunch some numbers on this season, for the Rangers. I've been wanting to do this for about 4 months, so indulge me. You might even learn something.
First of all, to make the math easy, I'm going to refer to every number as if this were a full season. All cap hits, and the cap, are pro-rated to the shortened length of this season, but multiplying every number here by the same percentage won't change the math any, and it will make things more complicated. So fuck that.
So, this season's cap is $70.2 million, which if I'm not mistaken is exactly what last season's cap was. It's hard to remember, as last season feels like it was about a decade ago. As you'd expect, the Rangers already have most of their roster locked down under contract. Where's that money going?
Returning Forwards (8 for $24,716,667): Gaborik (7.5); Richards (6.666667); Callahan (4.275); Boyle (1.7); Rupp (1.5); Kreider (1.325); Stepan (0.875); Hagelin (0.875)
New Forwards (5 for $11,650,000): Rick Nash (7.8); Taylor Pyatt (1.55); Arron Asham (fuck that guy) (1); Jeff Halpern (0.7); Micheal Haley (0.6)
Returning Defensemen (6 for $11,800,000): Staal (3.975); Girardi (3.325); Stralman (1.7); McDonagh (1.3); Eminger (0.75); Bickel (0.75)
Returning Goalies (2 for $8,175,000): Lundqvist (6.875); Biron (1.3)
That's a total of $56,341,667 on actual roster players, leaving $13,858,333 under the cap. Plenty of room. But there's some more to deal with.
First, as you already know, we have to pay off the final year of Chris Drury's buyout, for $1,666,667. Then, there's the new rule - the Redden Rule - that prevents salary burial in the AHL. The rule is that any one-way NHL contracts, even if the player is playing in the AHL and not on your NHL roster, still count against the cap. How much they count is still not publicly known, but it appears to be everything over the first $900,000 of the cap hit. That's the figure CapGeek uses, anyway. And it's a figure I believe. Redden's full NHL cap hit would be $6.5 million, so he'll be costing the Rangers $5.6 million under the cap this year, to play in Connecticut.
And then, there's the whole Michael Sauer thing. You should stop, in case you still are, asking whether or not Sauer will come back to the Rangers this season, and start asking if he's going to be healthy enough for a normal life - things are apparently really bad. With that said, we're here to talk about the cap, and Sauer is still under contract to the Rangers this season, for a hit of $1.25 million.
Drury, Redden, and Sauer add up to $8,516,667 for non-roster players, taking the Rangers' space down to $5,341,666. And then there are new contracts forthcoming. You'll note that the above player lists did not include noted favorite defenseman of this blog, Michael Del Zotto. He's still in contract talks with the Rangers (talks in which he has no leverage, as a restricted free agent not eligible for arbitration), and he reportedly wants a multi-year deal at over $3 million a year.
For reference, the New York Rangers pay Dan Girardi $3.325 million per year.
On what fucking planet is Michael Del Zotto worth what Dan Girardi is worth?
My paragraphs are becoming one sentence long to show how shocked I am by this idea.
Is it working?
Michael Del Zotto, your qualifying offer based on last season's salary should be $918,750 - maybe less, depending on a signing bonus. Least season, you were the least responsible defender on the team more nights than anyone else on the squad except Stu Bickel, who makes $750,000 to play 8 minutes a game and be 6'4". Where the shit-balls do you get off asking for Dan Girardi money, you deluded sociopath?
At any rate, $5,341,666 should be enough space to re-sign Del Zotto and sign camp invitee, once and future Ranger Matt Gilroy to a reasonable contract (~2 for DZ, ~1.5 for Gilroy?). But it doesn't leave the team very much wiggle room to make moves down the line.
But: There is a little more room than I presented here. First of all, Sauer will of course be on Long-Term Injured Reserve. This allows the Rangers to call up "replacement players" whose salaries add up to no more than Sauer's salary this season (which is also his cap hit, $1.25 million). So, for example, they could call Arron Asham a replacement for Sauer (which, frankly, would be textbook "adding insult to injury") because Asham's million-dollar salary is less than Sauer's, which means that, while Sauer still counts against the cap, Asham wouldn't. That would save the Rangers a million dollars under the cap.
Finally, there's the performance bonus cushion. Some of the above cap hits include performance bonuses - money that is only paid out if that player accomplishes some thing this season (number of games played, number of points, that kind of thing). Any potential bonuses count against the cap, until the accomplishments are no longer achievable. However, teams are permitted to go over the cap by those bonuses in the meanwhile (up to 7.5% of the total cap), and then if they end up getting paid out, that amount is docked from next year's cap. So, it's a last resort, as it's borrowing against the future, but it is technically some wiggle room.
The numbers above include, in performance bonuses, $637,500 for Kreider, $425,000 for McDonagh, and $187,500 for Hagelin, for a total of $1.25 million that the Rangers could theoretically borrow against next season (or, if things go badly for those players, not pay out at all).
This all means that, to sign Del Zotto and possibly Gilroy, and for future wiggle room, the Rangers have $5,341,666 free, plus about $2.5 million by which they can go over (1.25 for Sauer's replacement, 1.25 for performance bonuses). And now you know.
First of all, to make the math easy, I'm going to refer to every number as if this were a full season. All cap hits, and the cap, are pro-rated to the shortened length of this season, but multiplying every number here by the same percentage won't change the math any, and it will make things more complicated. So fuck that.
So, this season's cap is $70.2 million, which if I'm not mistaken is exactly what last season's cap was. It's hard to remember, as last season feels like it was about a decade ago. As you'd expect, the Rangers already have most of their roster locked down under contract. Where's that money going?
Returning Forwards (8 for $24,716,667): Gaborik (7.5); Richards (6.666667); Callahan (4.275); Boyle (1.7); Rupp (1.5); Kreider (1.325); Stepan (0.875); Hagelin (0.875)
New Forwards (5 for $11,650,000): Rick Nash (7.8); Taylor Pyatt (1.55); Arron Asham (fuck that guy) (1); Jeff Halpern (0.7); Micheal Haley (0.6)
Returning Defensemen (6 for $11,800,000): Staal (3.975); Girardi (3.325); Stralman (1.7); McDonagh (1.3); Eminger (0.75); Bickel (0.75)
Returning Goalies (2 for $8,175,000): Lundqvist (6.875); Biron (1.3)
That's a total of $56,341,667 on actual roster players, leaving $13,858,333 under the cap. Plenty of room. But there's some more to deal with.
First, as you already know, we have to pay off the final year of Chris Drury's buyout, for $1,666,667. Then, there's the new rule - the Redden Rule - that prevents salary burial in the AHL. The rule is that any one-way NHL contracts, even if the player is playing in the AHL and not on your NHL roster, still count against the cap. How much they count is still not publicly known, but it appears to be everything over the first $900,000 of the cap hit. That's the figure CapGeek uses, anyway. And it's a figure I believe. Redden's full NHL cap hit would be $6.5 million, so he'll be costing the Rangers $5.6 million under the cap this year, to play in Connecticut.
And then, there's the whole Michael Sauer thing. You should stop, in case you still are, asking whether or not Sauer will come back to the Rangers this season, and start asking if he's going to be healthy enough for a normal life - things are apparently really bad. With that said, we're here to talk about the cap, and Sauer is still under contract to the Rangers this season, for a hit of $1.25 million.
Drury, Redden, and Sauer add up to $8,516,667 for non-roster players, taking the Rangers' space down to $5,341,666. And then there are new contracts forthcoming. You'll note that the above player lists did not include noted favorite defenseman of this blog, Michael Del Zotto. He's still in contract talks with the Rangers (talks in which he has no leverage, as a restricted free agent not eligible for arbitration), and he reportedly wants a multi-year deal at over $3 million a year.
For reference, the New York Rangers pay Dan Girardi $3.325 million per year.
On what fucking planet is Michael Del Zotto worth what Dan Girardi is worth?
My paragraphs are becoming one sentence long to show how shocked I am by this idea.
Is it working?
Michael Del Zotto, your qualifying offer based on last season's salary should be $918,750 - maybe less, depending on a signing bonus. Least season, you were the least responsible defender on the team more nights than anyone else on the squad except Stu Bickel, who makes $750,000 to play 8 minutes a game and be 6'4". Where the shit-balls do you get off asking for Dan Girardi money, you deluded sociopath?
At any rate, $5,341,666 should be enough space to re-sign Del Zotto and sign camp invitee, once and future Ranger Matt Gilroy to a reasonable contract (~2 for DZ, ~1.5 for Gilroy?). But it doesn't leave the team very much wiggle room to make moves down the line.
But: There is a little more room than I presented here. First of all, Sauer will of course be on Long-Term Injured Reserve. This allows the Rangers to call up "replacement players" whose salaries add up to no more than Sauer's salary this season (which is also his cap hit, $1.25 million). So, for example, they could call Arron Asham a replacement for Sauer (which, frankly, would be textbook "adding insult to injury") because Asham's million-dollar salary is less than Sauer's, which means that, while Sauer still counts against the cap, Asham wouldn't. That would save the Rangers a million dollars under the cap.
Finally, there's the performance bonus cushion. Some of the above cap hits include performance bonuses - money that is only paid out if that player accomplishes some thing this season (number of games played, number of points, that kind of thing). Any potential bonuses count against the cap, until the accomplishments are no longer achievable. However, teams are permitted to go over the cap by those bonuses in the meanwhile (up to 7.5% of the total cap), and then if they end up getting paid out, that amount is docked from next year's cap. So, it's a last resort, as it's borrowing against the future, but it is technically some wiggle room.
The numbers above include, in performance bonuses, $637,500 for Kreider, $425,000 for McDonagh, and $187,500 for Hagelin, for a total of $1.25 million that the Rangers could theoretically borrow against next season (or, if things go badly for those players, not pay out at all).
This all means that, to sign Del Zotto and possibly Gilroy, and for future wiggle room, the Rangers have $5,341,666 free, plus about $2.5 million by which they can go over (1.25 for Sauer's replacement, 1.25 for performance bonuses). And now you know.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Our old friend, the salary cap
So, with the trade deadline only 48 days away, I think it's worth a quick glance at just how the Rangers are looking in terms of salary cap, after the Wolski trade and all these injuries. Recall that the salary cap for this season is set at $59.4 million. And so, away we go.
We will start with goalies, as they are always the easy one. Lundqvist makes $6.875m against the cap, Biron $875,000, for a total of $7.75 million against the cap. Done.
Now let's talk about defensemen. Right now, there are 6 on the roster: Staal ($3.975m), Girardi ($3.325m), Gilroy ($1.75m), McDonagh ($1.3m, of which $425,000 is bonuses), Eminger ($1.125m), and Sauer ($500,000). It's clear that at some point, Del Zotto ($1,087,500, of which $212,500 is bonuses) will be thrown back into that mix, probably replacing McDonagh. But for the sake of calculations, let's keep all 7 on our roster. That brings us to $13,062,500, of which $637,500 is bonuses. Recall that you can theoretically go over the cap by a performance-based bonus, but you probably don't want to - more on this later.
2 goalies and 7 defensemen leaves open 14 roster spots for forwards, not counting any that may be on Injured Reserve (more on this later, as well). Let's start with the simple ones: there are 10 forwards that are currently healthy and that we expect to be in the lineup nightly even when everyone is healthy. Those are: Gaborik ($7.5m), Drury ($7.05m), Wolksi ($3.8m), Avery ($1,937,500), Dubinsky ($1.85m), Fedotenko ($1m), Stepan ($875,000, of which $162,500 is bonuses), Anisimov ($821,667), Prust ($0.8m), and Boyle ($525,000). These 10 total another $26,159,167, of which $162,500 is bonuses.
Now, we've actually got 8 other forwards to talk about: 3 that are on IR but will return, 2 that are on IR but won't (I assume), and 3 that are called up in the interim here, whose futures are uncertain. Let's start by talking about those call-ups: Zuccarello ($1.75m, of which $0.85m is bonuses), Weise ($0.7m, of which $155,000 is bonuses), and Newbury ($512,500). Those all count against the cap as long as they're on the roster. Then there are Callahan ($2.3m), Boogaard ($1,625,000), and Christensen ($925,000), who are all on IR but will likely return at some point. Finally, we have Frolov ($3m), who is definitely out for the season, and Prospal ($2.48m, of which $1.4m is bonuses), who, like "Spiderman: Turn off the Dark," has a release date that keeps getting pushed back so much I have trouble believing he will ever actually play.
Obviously, no one is trying to count all 18 of those forwards against our cap. And I'll explain exactly how that works. But first let's add them all up and just see what happens. For these 27 players, the total cap hit is $60,264,167. $864,167 over the cap, 4 players over the maximum roster. So, we don't have any cap troubles. But, realistically speaking, how much room do we have to spare?
Let's start by assuming that Callahan, Boogaard, and Christensen all end up healthy again one day. That means that the 4 healthy roster spots left are distributed among the 3 of them, Zuccarello, Weise, and Newbury. Which really means that spots go to 3 of Boogaard, Christensen, Zuccarello, and Weise. Let's assume Weise gets the final cut, since he's the cheapest. There's $1,212,500 back, and we have the maximum roster size (since Frolov and Prospal are on LTIR, and we have 23 others). We have $348,333 to spend under the cap.
Now let's talk about cap credits. Even if Callahan, Boogaard, and Christensen are back, we've got two guys on LTIR, which means we are allowed to compensate for their loss by bringing in players whose salaries (not cap hits) do not exceed the injured players' salaries (not cap hits). These "replacement players" would then not count against the cap. Frolov's salary is $3m, and Prospal's is $1.08m, so that gives us $4.08m in salary that we can spend in players that would not count against the cap. That's awesome.
But wait; there's more! You'll note that I made a note of performance-based bonuses throughout. We end up, in our total salary, including $3.05m in bonuses. When a contract includes a performance-based bonus, the team may exceed the cap by that bonus (up to 7.5% of the cap, or $4.455m). If the team does so, and the bonus ends up getting paid out, that amount is deducted from the following year's cap, so it's not best to do this. However, it's worth mentioning, in no small part because $1.4m of those bonuses come from Prospal! It's pretty clear that we're in no danger of those being paid out (we're assuming he's on LTIR all season), so those become dollars we can spend.
Finally, those other performance-based bonuses, though we should stay away from them, are money we could theoretically spend if we had to. All this adds up to $1,748,333 we can spend under the cap, $4.08m in salary we could go over the cap, and $1.65 in bonuses we could technically still go over that. That's $7,478,333 we can theoretically spend, even though we'd have a full 23-man roster (2 forwards and 1 defenseman not in the actual lineup). Assuming we were bringing in a player with that money (what else would we do with it?), we'd have to clear him a roster slot, which at the very minimum nets us another $875,000 for sending down McDonagh. If we needed the cap space, we could then send down our 2 spare forwards. Those would likely be Christensen and Boogaard, whose salaries total $2.55m.
This leaves us with a full roster plus $10,903,333 with which we could theoretically make a move. That is more than the salary or the cap hit of any player in the league. Even if you take out the $1.65m in bonuses that we really shouldn't spend, it's still over the salary of anyone except Ovechkin, and over the cap hit of anyone except Lecavalier or Luongo. And that's more or less what we've got to work with on top of our best 20-man roster, if we need it. In conclusion, we have all the room in the world. There is absolutely no one we can/should not pursue for cap reasons. And that is awesome.
We will start with goalies, as they are always the easy one. Lundqvist makes $6.875m against the cap, Biron $875,000, for a total of $7.75 million against the cap. Done.
Now let's talk about defensemen. Right now, there are 6 on the roster: Staal ($3.975m), Girardi ($3.325m), Gilroy ($1.75m), McDonagh ($1.3m, of which $425,000 is bonuses), Eminger ($1.125m), and Sauer ($500,000). It's clear that at some point, Del Zotto ($1,087,500, of which $212,500 is bonuses) will be thrown back into that mix, probably replacing McDonagh. But for the sake of calculations, let's keep all 7 on our roster. That brings us to $13,062,500, of which $637,500 is bonuses. Recall that you can theoretically go over the cap by a performance-based bonus, but you probably don't want to - more on this later.
2 goalies and 7 defensemen leaves open 14 roster spots for forwards, not counting any that may be on Injured Reserve (more on this later, as well). Let's start with the simple ones: there are 10 forwards that are currently healthy and that we expect to be in the lineup nightly even when everyone is healthy. Those are: Gaborik ($7.5m), Drury ($7.05m), Wolksi ($3.8m), Avery ($1,937,500), Dubinsky ($1.85m), Fedotenko ($1m), Stepan ($875,000, of which $162,500 is bonuses), Anisimov ($821,667), Prust ($0.8m), and Boyle ($525,000). These 10 total another $26,159,167, of which $162,500 is bonuses.
Now, we've actually got 8 other forwards to talk about: 3 that are on IR but will return, 2 that are on IR but won't (I assume), and 3 that are called up in the interim here, whose futures are uncertain. Let's start by talking about those call-ups: Zuccarello ($1.75m, of which $0.85m is bonuses), Weise ($0.7m, of which $155,000 is bonuses), and Newbury ($512,500). Those all count against the cap as long as they're on the roster. Then there are Callahan ($2.3m), Boogaard ($1,625,000), and Christensen ($925,000), who are all on IR but will likely return at some point. Finally, we have Frolov ($3m), who is definitely out for the season, and Prospal ($2.48m, of which $1.4m is bonuses), who, like "Spiderman: Turn off the Dark," has a release date that keeps getting pushed back so much I have trouble believing he will ever actually play.
Obviously, no one is trying to count all 18 of those forwards against our cap. And I'll explain exactly how that works. But first let's add them all up and just see what happens. For these 27 players, the total cap hit is $60,264,167. $864,167 over the cap, 4 players over the maximum roster. So, we don't have any cap troubles. But, realistically speaking, how much room do we have to spare?
Let's start by assuming that Callahan, Boogaard, and Christensen all end up healthy again one day. That means that the 4 healthy roster spots left are distributed among the 3 of them, Zuccarello, Weise, and Newbury. Which really means that spots go to 3 of Boogaard, Christensen, Zuccarello, and Weise. Let's assume Weise gets the final cut, since he's the cheapest. There's $1,212,500 back, and we have the maximum roster size (since Frolov and Prospal are on LTIR, and we have 23 others). We have $348,333 to spend under the cap.
Now let's talk about cap credits. Even if Callahan, Boogaard, and Christensen are back, we've got two guys on LTIR, which means we are allowed to compensate for their loss by bringing in players whose salaries (not cap hits) do not exceed the injured players' salaries (not cap hits). These "replacement players" would then not count against the cap. Frolov's salary is $3m, and Prospal's is $1.08m, so that gives us $4.08m in salary that we can spend in players that would not count against the cap. That's awesome.
But wait; there's more! You'll note that I made a note of performance-based bonuses throughout. We end up, in our total salary, including $3.05m in bonuses. When a contract includes a performance-based bonus, the team may exceed the cap by that bonus (up to 7.5% of the cap, or $4.455m). If the team does so, and the bonus ends up getting paid out, that amount is deducted from the following year's cap, so it's not best to do this. However, it's worth mentioning, in no small part because $1.4m of those bonuses come from Prospal! It's pretty clear that we're in no danger of those being paid out (we're assuming he's on LTIR all season), so those become dollars we can spend.
Finally, those other performance-based bonuses, though we should stay away from them, are money we could theoretically spend if we had to. All this adds up to $1,748,333 we can spend under the cap, $4.08m in salary we could go over the cap, and $1.65 in bonuses we could technically still go over that. That's $7,478,333 we can theoretically spend, even though we'd have a full 23-man roster (2 forwards and 1 defenseman not in the actual lineup). Assuming we were bringing in a player with that money (what else would we do with it?), we'd have to clear him a roster slot, which at the very minimum nets us another $875,000 for sending down McDonagh. If we needed the cap space, we could then send down our 2 spare forwards. Those would likely be Christensen and Boogaard, whose salaries total $2.55m.
This leaves us with a full roster plus $10,903,333 with which we could theoretically make a move. That is more than the salary or the cap hit of any player in the league. Even if you take out the $1.65m in bonuses that we really shouldn't spend, it's still over the salary of anyone except Ovechkin, and over the cap hit of anyone except Lecavalier or Luongo. And that's more or less what we've got to work with on top of our best 20-man roster, if we need it. In conclusion, we have all the room in the world. There is absolutely no one we can/should not pursue for cap reasons. And that is awesome.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
It starts
Things are going to start happening sooner than you'd expect, in terms of next season. I don't know when news will break, and interesting things probably won't happen for some time, but it's important to have context when news does break. In the interest of keeping you informed, let's start with a rundown of our current roster and everyone's 2009-'10 status.
Under contract (numbers listed are cap hit, not salary)
Scott Gomez - $7.4 million
Chris Drury - $7.1 million
Sean Avery - $1.9 million
Aaron Voros - $1 million
Wade Redden - $6.5 million
Michal Rozsival - $5 million
Dan Girardi - $1.6 million
Marc Staal - $0.8 million
Henrik Lundqvist - $6.9 million
Restricted free agents (* means eligible for arbitration)
Nikolai Zherdev *
Lauri Korpikoski
Fredrik Sjostrom *
Brandon Dubinsky
Ryan Callahan *
Unrestricted free agents
Nik Antropov
Blair Betts
Colton Orr
Derek Morris
Paul Mara
Stephen Valiquette
Let's make sure we understand what this means. First of all, the salary cap. It's important to understand that there are like a million games that can be played with the salary cap, and at the end of the day, the cap hit incurred for a given player is, at best, a pretty good approximation of how much you're paying him for the year. These games include bonuses, contracts to other teams, and all sorts of crazy magic that is probably fascinating to many businesspeople. Hell, it would probably even be fascinating to me, if someone sat me down and explained it all - math is fucking neat. But, for now, don't worry too much about it - the important thing about a player is his cap hit.
A salary cap, obviously, is the maximum salary a team can spend on its players, total, for the season (again, tabulating their magical "cap hit" number, rather than their actual salary). Actually, what we call the salary cap the NHL calls the "Upper Limit of the Payroll Range" - the implication being that there is a corresponding "Lower Limit of the Payroll Range," which is a thing the Rangers ought never to have to worry about. For reference, the Lower Limit is defined to be $16 million under the Upper Limit.
For the 2008-'09 season, the salary cap was $56.7 million. Generally speaking, the cap rises annually, by an astronomically larger-than-inflation holy-crap-athletes-make-a-lot-of-money quantity. Bear in mind, of course, that over the last few years, the Canadian Dollar has risen dramatically compared to our Piece of Shit Dollar, which makes these numbers a little more believable. But still: the first season after the lockout (which you'll recall was '05-'06), the league salary cap was $39 million. Yeah, the Upper Limit. Since then, it rose to $44 million, $50.3 million, and then its current $56.7 million. Wow. So, some people are talking about the cap rising by that much again, and looking at $62 million.
However, you may also have noticed that this country is in a shit-ass recession right now. Many other internet hockey scholars would have you believe, therefore, that the cap will fall to as low as $50 million, or even back down into the 40s (alack!). However, internet scholars are always wrong. Conventional wisdom, if there can be said to be such a thing, probably convinces us that the cap will stay right around where it is. TSN reports that the Globe and Mail reports that it may fall a little, down to around $55 million, but not more than that. Note: the aforelinked article is not just a report of the cap fall, it also bitches about how NHL players will lose way more money than it sounds like, due to money held in escrow. The time it took you to read that sentence is way longer than the time you should spend feeling bad for NHL players losing money in the recession.
So, I'm going to assume that we're looking at around $55 million for the salary cap next season, until I hear otherwise. With that figure in mind, let's look back up at our current contracts. We're incurring a $38.2 million cap hit for the players we have under contract, leaving us something like $17 million to sign the rest. This is not great (though it's much better than it would have been with Naslund still in the mix). We can trade some of the current players under contract for others, and we can sign any of our free agents, listed above.
More terminology: an unrestricted free agent (UFA) is the simplest thing a player can be: his contract expires, and he is looking for a new one. This is essentially what you and I are. We are UFAs, in that any NHL team can attempt to sign a contract with us, should we and the team be interested. These players are free to deal with the Rangers, if interested, as well as with anyone else.
A restricted free agent (RFA) cannot just leave the Rangers quite as easily. Before other teams are allowed to negotiate with RFAs, the RFA's current team is allowed to make an offer that takes priority, in which case the RFA is committed to take the offer from the current team. There are certain rules about these offers - they must be for 100%-110% of the player's previous salary, depending on what that salary was - but the point is that another team can't just come in and buy him up unless his team lets him go. So, these are players for whom the Rangers won't have to negotiate with other teams (which ultimately drives salaries up).
RFAs are also what make July 1 an important date in the NHL calendar. (See? The Cup is handed out mid-June - there really is hockey news year-round!) July 1 is when free agency signing begins. This means that every RFA in the league becomes unrestricted. So, if teams want to make moves for their RFAs, they have to do it by July 1, or any prior claim they have is waived.
One more thing: that asterisk up with the RFAs that talks about arbitration. This isn't a huge deal, I just wanted to make you aware of it. Presumably, an RFA could be worth way more than his current contract. A team could then get away with continuing to underpay him by exercising their rights to retain their RFAs. This is where arbitration comes in - certain players, depending on their tenure in the league, qualify for salary arbitration, which is exactly what it sounds like. The team and the player each propose a salary, and a third party arbitrates and comes up with the right number, by magic. The only reason we care is that those RFAs that do qualify for arbitration this summer, if they choose to exercise their rights to arbitration, may end up costing us more than they otherwise would as regular, rights-less RFAs.
I think that's the summary. Comment if you have any questions.
Under contract (numbers listed are cap hit, not salary)
Scott Gomez - $7.4 million
Chris Drury - $7.1 million
Sean Avery - $1.9 million
Aaron Voros - $1 million
Wade Redden - $6.5 million
Michal Rozsival - $5 million
Dan Girardi - $1.6 million
Marc Staal - $0.8 million
Henrik Lundqvist - $6.9 million
Restricted free agents (* means eligible for arbitration)
Nikolai Zherdev *
Lauri Korpikoski
Fredrik Sjostrom *
Brandon Dubinsky
Ryan Callahan *
Unrestricted free agents
Nik Antropov
Blair Betts
Colton Orr
Derek Morris
Paul Mara
Stephen Valiquette
Let's make sure we understand what this means. First of all, the salary cap. It's important to understand that there are like a million games that can be played with the salary cap, and at the end of the day, the cap hit incurred for a given player is, at best, a pretty good approximation of how much you're paying him for the year. These games include bonuses, contracts to other teams, and all sorts of crazy magic that is probably fascinating to many businesspeople. Hell, it would probably even be fascinating to me, if someone sat me down and explained it all - math is fucking neat. But, for now, don't worry too much about it - the important thing about a player is his cap hit.
A salary cap, obviously, is the maximum salary a team can spend on its players, total, for the season (again, tabulating their magical "cap hit" number, rather than their actual salary). Actually, what we call the salary cap the NHL calls the "Upper Limit of the Payroll Range" - the implication being that there is a corresponding "Lower Limit of the Payroll Range," which is a thing the Rangers ought never to have to worry about. For reference, the Lower Limit is defined to be $16 million under the Upper Limit.
For the 2008-'09 season, the salary cap was $56.7 million. Generally speaking, the cap rises annually, by an astronomically larger-than-inflation holy-crap-athletes-make-a-lot-of-money quantity. Bear in mind, of course, that over the last few years, the Canadian Dollar has risen dramatically compared to our Piece of Shit Dollar, which makes these numbers a little more believable. But still: the first season after the lockout (which you'll recall was '05-'06), the league salary cap was $39 million. Yeah, the Upper Limit. Since then, it rose to $44 million, $50.3 million, and then its current $56.7 million. Wow. So, some people are talking about the cap rising by that much again, and looking at $62 million.
However, you may also have noticed that this country is in a shit-ass recession right now. Many other internet hockey scholars would have you believe, therefore, that the cap will fall to as low as $50 million, or even back down into the 40s (alack!). However, internet scholars are always wrong. Conventional wisdom, if there can be said to be such a thing, probably convinces us that the cap will stay right around where it is. TSN reports that the Globe and Mail reports that it may fall a little, down to around $55 million, but not more than that. Note: the aforelinked article is not just a report of the cap fall, it also bitches about how NHL players will lose way more money than it sounds like, due to money held in escrow. The time it took you to read that sentence is way longer than the time you should spend feeling bad for NHL players losing money in the recession.
So, I'm going to assume that we're looking at around $55 million for the salary cap next season, until I hear otherwise. With that figure in mind, let's look back up at our current contracts. We're incurring a $38.2 million cap hit for the players we have under contract, leaving us something like $17 million to sign the rest. This is not great (though it's much better than it would have been with Naslund still in the mix). We can trade some of the current players under contract for others, and we can sign any of our free agents, listed above.
More terminology: an unrestricted free agent (UFA) is the simplest thing a player can be: his contract expires, and he is looking for a new one. This is essentially what you and I are. We are UFAs, in that any NHL team can attempt to sign a contract with us, should we and the team be interested. These players are free to deal with the Rangers, if interested, as well as with anyone else.
A restricted free agent (RFA) cannot just leave the Rangers quite as easily. Before other teams are allowed to negotiate with RFAs, the RFA's current team is allowed to make an offer that takes priority, in which case the RFA is committed to take the offer from the current team. There are certain rules about these offers - they must be for 100%-110% of the player's previous salary, depending on what that salary was - but the point is that another team can't just come in and buy him up unless his team lets him go. So, these are players for whom the Rangers won't have to negotiate with other teams (which ultimately drives salaries up).
RFAs are also what make July 1 an important date in the NHL calendar. (See? The Cup is handed out mid-June - there really is hockey news year-round!) July 1 is when free agency signing begins. This means that every RFA in the league becomes unrestricted. So, if teams want to make moves for their RFAs, they have to do it by July 1, or any prior claim they have is waived.
One more thing: that asterisk up with the RFAs that talks about arbitration. This isn't a huge deal, I just wanted to make you aware of it. Presumably, an RFA could be worth way more than his current contract. A team could then get away with continuing to underpay him by exercising their rights to retain their RFAs. This is where arbitration comes in - certain players, depending on their tenure in the league, qualify for salary arbitration, which is exactly what it sounds like. The team and the player each propose a salary, and a third party arbitrates and comes up with the right number, by magic. The only reason we care is that those RFAs that do qualify for arbitration this summer, if they choose to exercise their rights to arbitration, may end up costing us more than they otherwise would as regular, rights-less RFAs.
I think that's the summary. Comment if you have any questions.
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