All but final: Cap= 56.3M

[YoungGuns1340 1]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03302008/sport...4233.htm?page=1

Cap floor = 40.3M

[YoungGuns1340 1]

Haha. I just remembered when the cap cieling was 39M. The floor has now surpassed that.

[DaKineMaui 8]

Cap floor = 40.3M

Somebody inform Washington.

[Reds4Life 51]

Pretty good, we have some room now

[Guest EZBAKETHAGANGSTA]

only helps us

EDIT: I Mean that as its only a postive for us, not that other teams woudlnt benifit from it rising either

Edited June 21, 2008 by EZBAKETHAGANGSTA

[YoungGuns1340 1]

By the time Hank and Franzens contracts kick in, the cap should be around 58M, if not more.

[wingsdiehard13 33]

Awesome, about a million more than I expected.

[Dabura 12,232]

Wow. Good news!

[PaVel DaTsYuK fan13 0]

awesome. I was expecting 55

[Majsheppard 203]

Are we under the floor??

[Dabura 12,232]

awesome. I was expecting 55

Same. But I have no problem with being wrong in this case.

[DaKineMaui 8]

Awesome. Now I can go out and buy........no wait.

[Barrie 900]

They should eliminate the floor. Many small markets teams are worse off now than before the lockout.

[eva unit zero 271]

They should eliminate the floor. Many small markets teams are worse off now than before the lockout.

Revenue sharing covers the gap between team revenues and the salary midpoint if necessary. The only teams it doesn't do this for are large market teams and teams that have failing attendance. Large market teams are not small market teams, and teams with failing attendance now fall into the group of 'might not still be around' had it not been for the lockout.

[Barrie 900]

Revenue sharing covers the gap between team revenues and the salary midpoint if necessary. The only teams it doesn't do this for are large market teams and teams that have failing attendance. Large market teams are not small market teams, and teams with failing attendance now fall into the group of 'might not still be around' had it not been for the lockout.

I know Revenue Sharing is susposed to bridge the gap, but I've heard LA has said they were better off before the lockout. 8 teams have contacted Ballsilie about purchasing their team(s), so a number of NHL owners want out. Plus I've also heard that only 8 teams are making a profit, all 6 Canadian teams, leaving only 2 in the USA. Everything I heard was from the FAN590 in Toronto on Prime Time Sports with Bob MacCown. McCown isn't a Maple Leafs fan so this isn't homer reporting.

This new salary cap system isn't as good as they thought it would be.

[VM1138 1,921]

I know Revenue Sharing is susposed to bridge the gap, but I've heard LA has said they were better off before the lockout. 8 teams have contacted Ballsilie about purchasing their team(s), so a number of NHL owners want out. Plus I've also heard that only 8 teams are making a profit, all 6 Canadian teams, leaving only 2 in the USA. Everything I heard was from the FAN590 in Toronto on Prime Time Sports with Bob MacCown. McCown isn't a Maple Leafs fan so this isn't homer reporting.

This new salary cap system isn't as good as they thought it would be.

And now it's kind of pointless because we're getting to the point of pre-lockout numbers, but not quite there yet.

[eva unit zero 271]

I know Revenue Sharing is susposed to bridge the gap, but I've heard LA has said they were better off before the lockout. 8 teams have contacted Ballsilie about purchasing their team(s), so a number of NHL owners want out. Plus I've also heard that only 8 teams are making a profit, all 6 Canadian teams, leaving only 2 in the USA. Everything I heard was from the FAN590 in Toronto on Prime Time Sports with Bob MacCown. McCown isn't a Maple Leafs fan so this isn't homer reporting.

This new salary cap system isn't as good as they thought it would be.

LA is a large market team; so they are not eligible for revenue sharing. However, the Kings' payroll going into the lockout was $56m, and their revenue was close to $80m. So unless they have seen a decline in revenue while the league has increased revenue considerably in the same time frame, the Kings are doing as well or better. Plus, the number of two American teams that are not losing money seems far fetched. Offhand I can think of Detroit, the Rangers, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Colorado as teams that had revenue numbers upwards of $100m going into the lockout; this season player costs were capped at about half that figure. Player costs are also the primary expense of an NHL team.

So unless you think that three of those teams saw their revenue stream shrink by 50% or more...the 'two American teams turning a profit' line is complete BS. And you claimed there wasn't an agenda behind it? But there was; Southern Ontario desperately wants Jim Balsillie to get his hands on an NHL team. Ottawa has had a team for about fifteen years, are you really surprised Toronto wants one too?

[HomeNugget 2]

LA is a large market team; so they are not eligible for revenue sharing. However, the Kings' payroll going into the lockout was $56m, and their revenue was close to $80m. So unless they have seen a decline in revenue while the league has increased revenue considerably in the same time frame, the Kings are doing as well or better. Plus, the number of two American teams that are not losing money seems far fetched. Offhand I can think of Detroit, the Rangers, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Colorado as teams that had revenue numbers upwards of $100m going into the lockout; this season player costs were capped at about half that figure. Player costs are also the primary expense of an NHL team.

So unless you think that three of those teams saw their revenue stream shrink by 50% or more...the 'two American teams turning a profit' line is complete BS. And you claimed there wasn't an agenda behind it? But there was; Southern Ontario desperately wants Jim Balsillie to get his hands on an NHL team. Ottawa has had a team for about fifteen years, are you really surprised Toronto wants one too?

Zing!

this should give us plenty of room to extend Z and 'Stein and to resign/replace Stuart. awesome news for us.

[eva unit zero 271]

And now it's kind of pointless because we're getting to the point of pre-lockout numbers, but not quite there yet.

Except that instead of 75% of revenue going to player salaries, it's 57%. That's significant.

[norrisnick 1]

LA is a large market team; so they are not eligible for revenue sharing. However, the Kings' payroll going into the lockout was $56m, and their revenue was close to $80m. So unless they have seen a decline in revenue while the league has increased revenue considerably in the same time frame, the Kings are doing as well or better. Plus, the number of two American teams that are not losing money seems far fetched. Offhand I can think of Detroit, the Rangers, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Colorado as teams that had revenue numbers upwards of $100m going into the lockout; this season player costs were capped at about half that figure. Player costs are also the primary expense of an NHL team.

So unless you think that three of those teams saw their revenue stream shrink by 50% or more...the 'two American teams turning a profit' line is complete BS. And you claimed there wasn't an agenda behind it? But there was; Southern Ontario desperately wants Jim Balsillie to get his hands on an NHL team. Ottawa has had a team for about fifteen years, are you really surprised Toronto wants one too?

Not to mention that Anschutz is the largest and most profitable sports/entertainment ownership group in the world.

The Kings running a bit in the red (if indeed they are) isn't going to be felt at all.

[stormboy 47]

alright...so i just want to talk this out a little bit...and this thread seemed as good as any. just for my own (and possibly anyone else's) edification.

56.3 million. right now, our cap hit for next year is 39.532, according to the salary chart on lets go wings. that's a gap of about 16.8 million. the following players from last year are UFA's.

Dallas Drake (this year payed 0.550 million)

Mark Hartigan (0.550)

Darren McCarty (0.535)

Aaron Downey (0.525)

Brad Stuart (3.5)

Andreas Lilja (1)

Chris Chelios (.850)

Dominik Hasek (2.050)

RFA's.

Valtteri Filppula (0.850)

Jonathan Erricson (0.475)

[these are listed as inactive on letsgowings salary chart, but may play in detroit next season, so i'll include them]

Kyle Quincy (.535)

Jimmy Howard (.850)

* * *

So, first of all, who DOESN'T get resigned? Hasek is retiring. Dallas Drake will most likely not sign. Conventional wisdom is probably that McCarty will not resign. I see no reason for us to keep Mark Hartigan.

Who will for sure get resigned next year? For me, all four of the RFA's are shoe-ins. The others I'll discuss next under the "maybes." So, how much will these characters all get paid? Let's start with Filppula. His points more than doubled from last year (goals nearly doubled, assists more than did), his +/- went up significantly, and though his ATOI increased from 11:16 to nearly 17:00, his increase in points outpaces his increase in ice time. He had 11 points in 22 playoff games last year, maintaining his regular-season pace of about half a point per game. We've all discussed our feelings about his inconsistency. The question seems to be, how much can/will he develop? On this answer (most likely) rests the decision of how much Val will make next year (assuming another GM doesn't offer a ridiculously inflated offer sheet). So what do other young forwards who score about .5 PPG? Well, he had less points in more games than Dan Cleary did last year, who just got signed for 2.8 million. Also, he arguably has less grit and less strength on the puck, things that both factor in to Cleary's salary. Jarret Stoll had similar numbers to Valterri last year, but has had MUCH better number in previous years, and is on the tail end of a 2.2 million contract.

Final analysis: In my opinion, Flippula should get between 2-2.25 million, maybe for three years, to be resigned to a bigger contract if he continues to improve. Will others offer him more? Possibly. Should we pay him more than 3 million? Doubtful. So, let's say, for the sake of argument, that Val gets 2.5 million next year.

Next up, we've got Erricson and Quincey. Depending on what happens with our other D-men, they both may or may not get Detroit minutes next year, with Erricson being particularly in doubt. I could be way off here, but I see both of them getting signed for around 0.850. We want to keep both of them in our system, but they're not going to be top-4 defensmen.

The one that I'm really unsure about is Howard, in terms of money. Is going from starter in AHL to back up in NHL (assuming that's what happens) worth a big raise? Osgood made 0.800 this season. Granted, he got a nice raise, but there's no way that Howard makes more than a million next year, right? Stop me if I'm wrong, but I just don't see that happening.

Finally, who MIGHT get resigned? You could maybe put McCarty here because, as far as I know, there's no information saying that he WON'T play for sure next season. If he does resign, it'll likely be for around the 0.550 mark. Other than that, you've got Downey. Like to see him back as a part-time enforcer. Probable, but not guaranteed at this point, as far as I know. Again, don't see him getting much above the 0.550 mark if he stays.

Then you've got Stuart, Chilios, Lilja. As armchair GM, I don't resign Chelios or Lilja and bring up Quincey and Ericcson. (Lids, Raf, Kron, ?*, Quincey/Ericcson, Lebda) ?* = Stuart. This is the big maybe here. For the sake of my little (/big) write-up here, we're going to assume that Stuart does NOT resign, citing family / living reasons for departure. Then, if we don't have Cheli or Lilja, some combination of Q/E/L becomes our bottom-three guys.

Now, defensmen combinations are something we can talk endlessly about, but it's not really the point of this. The point is salary cap. If Lilja and Chelios re-sign, I can't see them getting much more than what they got this year, each. Meaning, their total salary should be less than two million. If neither re-sign, and Quincey and Ericcson are our guys (or maybe Meech is---we'll see. either way it's one of last year's AHL guys) their total salaries will be 1.5 million on the high side. Leaving only a variance of about half a million. For the sake of ease, we'll just call it a wash and say that whatever happens with Chilios/Lilja/Quincy/Meech/Ericcson, not much will change salary-wise. The big question is Stuart, but again, let's just pretend that he leaves.

So now, then.

Current cap hit total.

Total: 39.523

My predictions.

Flipper: 2.5

Dwny/DMac?: (1.5)

Howard: 1.0

D-Men 5 & 6: 2.0 (See above. This is some combo of Cheli, Lils, Quin, Ericc, Meech.)

New total: 45.023 (46.523 with Downey and Dmac--for the remainder, we'll assume they don't resign)

At this stage in the game, we have a few holes left from free agency. We'll say the D is wrapped up (maybe a little more to come about that in the final section), and assuming we go with Osgood-Howard (again, more about that at the bottom), we've only got our forwards to take care of. (These line arrangments are just my opinions, and the specific combinations are not ALL that important--the point is simply to see where on the depth chart we've got holes.)

Line 1: ZDH: Signed, at least through next year.

Line 2: Flipper-Cleary-Sammy/Franzen: Assuming we retain Valterri, that line is also signed.

Line 3: Maltby-Draper-?: No Dallas Drake here. That's a hole. McCarty or Downey would likely not fit on this line even if they re-signed.

Line 4: Helm-Hudler-?: This line was juggled quite a lot during the season and playoffs. Assuming Kopecky is healthy next season, one sees him getting fourth line minutes. I myself see no reason to get rid of Hudler or Helm; Helm-Hudler-Kopy seems like an alright fourth line. This line was good with H-H-Mac during the playoffs, and Kopy (ideally) brings some of the hitting/grit of McCarty with a bit more energy/stamina and a *small* degree more of offensive upside.

So, we need someone for line three. (This assumes Helm has earned full-time duty in Detroit, which I believe he has.) We've maybe got Downey and possibly McCarty floating in the wings in case of injury/need to fight. You've also got Abdelkader ready to come up in times of need. Draper gets less than 2 million; Maltby gets less than 1. Who would you like to see on that line? At this point, we've got slightly more than ten million in cap space; Holland will surely want to save some of that for the trade deadline/injury insurance. The question is, do you get a Drake-style player who brings a bit of grit and leadership in, or do you go for someone in a 2.5-3 million range with a little more offensive upside (with Draper, they could produce SOME goals) and a bit more speed? Not that I'd necessarily want him, but a Sean Avery-type player, 2-3 million range, can score, agitates, etc. John Madden still has one year left on his contract in Jersey, and it's doubtful the Devils let a Selke candidate slip away, but imagine Madden playing alone side Maltby and Draper. He's about a 3 million dollar player. Or, again, a guy from the Devils who's a UFA this year: Jay Pandolfo. He's about a 1 million dollar player who never really found his offensive potential, but has grit and solid defensive skills.

Or, barring injury, Cleary moves to the third line and Franzen and Sammy stay on the second. (I'd rather see Cleary with Flipper and Franzen, but given Cleary's style of play, he fits in better with Draper and Malts than does Sammy.) But given the fact of injury, it's somewhat likely that one of our top six forwards will be injured at some point, moving Franzen, Cleary or Filppula to the top line and leaving a hole on our third.

Enough talk about that. Let's say that we get a third line player for 2.5 million.

New Total: 47.523 million.

Still almost nine million. Do we sign a big free agent to a one year deal (I know, easier said than done) just to give us that edge this year then rearrange the lines (putting Helm, Hudler or Kopecky likely out of a job) or just sit on the money to make a big deadline deal and make damn sure that Franzen and Hank get re-signed next year? That's the question, I guess.

**Wildcards. Here are some random things that I could see happening that change quite a bit in this analysis.

1a. Brad Stuart re-signs. Assuming Cheli and Lilja DON'T re-sign, this is less of a big deal because we can easily keep Ericcson down in Grand Rapids for another year (correct me if I'm wrong here). But, alternatively, assuming they BOTH re-sign, then we're back to Lids-Raf, Kron-Stu, Lils/Lebs/Cheli, which isn't my ideal, but is tolerable. However, the Stuart signing will push of over 50 million. This isn't really a problem, as we would still have room for a deadline deal, but it would pretty much eliminate a huge one-year signing.

1b. Stuart leaves, but Holland deems it necessary to sign another veteran D-Man. This would more likely happen (in my opinion) if Cheli (and, to a lesser degree, Lilja) depart. The situation would essentially be the same as 1a, but with a different name.

2. We sign a goalie. I know there has been talk of Ryan Miller; if this talk has any logical foundation whatsoever, I'm not sure. Still, it's possible that we could make a non-Ryan Miller signing to either be our number one or to back up Ozzie while Howard plays more in GR. At this point, I don't see us signing a back up for Ozzie; if we sign someone, it will be a starter for Ozzie to back up/tandem with. This means we're looking at someone probably well over 2 million. However, if Howard stayed in GR, his salary of (what I have guessed to be) about a million won't count against us. Signing a goalie of this caliber wouldn't necessarily preclude us from signing Stuart (or equivalent), but would then push our payroll withing 3 or 4 million of the cap.

3. The Flippula signing costs a lot more. Is 2.5 million a pipe dream for Filppula? I don't think so, though some might. However, there's the distinct possibility that someone offers him a sheet of a lot more. How high do we go for Filppula? 3 million? Maybe. 3.5? That's tough. 4? No chance, in my opinion. This contingency raises two possibilities: One, if we re-sign Filppula for a higher figure, we've got less money to do other things with. We could still probably get a goalie and a D-man, but we'd be really pushing the cap at that point, leaving less and less room for a deadline deal. Two, if we can't keep him, that means we've lost of secondary scoring. In theory, we have two top lines with Franzen, Cleary and Sammy making up the second line. Hudler COULD move up to those lines if there's injury, but that takes the teeth out of our fourth line. More importantly, we've got power play problems. The loss of Filppula would most likely necessitate a signing of at least moderate importance. In theory, if we lose Filppula, we'd have lots of room to offer Hossa a big deal for one year hoping that Helm/Hudler/Abdelkader could step up next year after we sign Z and Franzen.

. . .

So I doubt anyone will actually read this, but it's a lazy Sunday afternoon and I miss hockey already. At least thinking and writing about it makes me feel better.

Edited June 22, 2008 by stormboy

[DaKineMaui 8]

alright...so i just want to talk this out a little bit...and this thread seemed as good as any. just for my own (and possibly anyone else's) edification.

56.3 million. right now, our cap hit for next year is 39.532, according to the salary chart on lets go wings. that's a gap of about 16.8 million. the following players from last year are UFA's.

Dallas Drake (this year payed 0.550 million)

Mark Hartigan (0.550)

Darren McCarty (0.535)

Aaron Downey (0.525)

Brad Stuart (3.5)

Andreas Lilja (1)

Chris Chelios (.850)

Dominik Hasek (2.050)

RFA's.

Valtteri Filppula (0.850)

Jonathan Erricson (0.475)

[these are listed as inactive on letsgowings salary chart, but may play in detroit next season, so i'll include them]

Kyle Quincy (.535)

Jimmy Howard (.850)

* * *

So, first of all, who DOESN'T get resigned? Hasek is retiring. Dallas Drake will most likely not sign. Conventional wisdom is probably that McCarty will not resign. I see no reason for us to keep Mark Hartigan.

Who will for sure get resigned next year? For me, all four of the RFA's are shoe-ins. The others I'll discuss next under the "maybes." So, how much will these characters all get paid? Let's start with Filppula. His points more than doubled from last year (goals nearly doubled, assists more than did), his +/- went up significantly, and though his ATOI increased from 11:16 to nearly 17:00, his increase in points outpaces his increase in ice time. He had 11 points in 22 playoff games last year, maintaining his regular-season pace of about half a point per game. We've all discussed our feelings about his inconsistency. The question seems to be, how much can/will he develop? On this answer (most likely) rests the decision of how much Val will make next year (assuming another GM doesn't offer a ridiculously inflated offer sheet). So what do other young forwards who score about .5 PPG? Well, he had less points in more games than Dan Cleary did last year, who just got signed for 2.8 million. Also, he arguably has less grit and less strength on the puck, things that both factor in to Cleary's salary. Jarret Stoll had similar numbers to Valterri last year, but has had MUCH better number in previous years, and is on the tail end of a 2.2 million contract.

Final analysis: In my opinion, Flippula should get between 2-2.25 million, maybe for three years, to be resigned to a bigger contract if he continues to improve. Will others offer him more? Possibly. Should we pay him more than 3 million? Doubtful. So, let's say, for the sake of argument, that Val gets 2.5 million next year.

Next up, we've got Erricson and Quincey. Depending on what happens with our other D-men, they both may or may not get Detroit minutes next year, with Erricson being particularly in doubt. I could be way off here, but I see both of them getting signed for around 0.850. We want to keep both of them in our system, but they're not going to be top-4 defensmen.

The one that I'm really unsure about is Howard, in terms of money. Is going from starter in AHL to back up in NHL (assuming that's what happens) worth a big raise? Osgood made 0.800 this season. Granted, he got a nice raise, but there's no way that Howard makes more than a million next year, right? Stop me if I'm wrong, but I just don't see that happening.

Finally, who MIGHT get resigned? You could maybe put McCarty here because, as far as I know, there's no information saying that he WON'T play for sure next season. If he does resign, it'll likely be for around the 0.550 mark. Other than that, you've got Downey. Like to see him back as a part-time enforcer. Probable, but not guaranteed at this point, as far as I know. Again, don't see him getting much above the 0.550 mark if he stays.

Then you've got Stuart, Chilios, Lilja. As armchair GM, I don't resign Chelios or Lilja and bring up Quincey and Ericcson. (Lids, Raf, Kron, ?*, Quincey/Ericcson, Lebda) ?* = Stuart. This is the big maybe here. For the sake of my little (/big) write-up here, we're going to assume that Stuart does NOT resign, citing family / living reasons for departure. Then, if we don't have Cheli or Lilja, some combination of Q/E/L becomes our bottom-three guys.

Now, defensmen combinations are something we can talk endlessly about, but it's not really the point of this. The point is salary cap. If Lilja and Chelios re-sign, I can't see them getting much more than what they got this year, each. Meaning, their total salary should be less than two million. If neither re-sign, and Quincey and Ericcson are our guys (or maybe Meech is---we'll see. either way it's one of last year's AHL guys) their total salaries will be 1.5 million on the high side. Leaving only a variance of about half a million. For the sake of ease, we'll just call it a wash and say that whatever happens with Chilios/Lilja/Quincy/Meech/Ericcson, not much will change salary-wise. The big question is Stuart, but again, let's just pretend that he leaves.

So now, then.

Current cap hit total.

Total: 39.523

My predictions.

Flipper: 2.5

Dwny/DMac?: (1.5)

Howard: 1.0

D-Men 5 & 6: 2.0 (See above. This is some combo of Cheli, Lils, Quin, Ericc, Meech.)

New total: 45.023 (46.523 with Downey and Dmac--for the remainder, we'll assume they don't resign)

At this stage in the game, we have a few holes left from free agency. We'll say the D is wrapped up (maybe a little more to come about that in the final section), and assuming we go with Osgood-Howard (again, more about that at the bottom), we've only got our forwards to take care of. (These line arrangments are just my opinions, and the specific combinations are not ALL that important--the point is simply to see where on the depth chart we've got holes.)

Line 1: ZDH: Signed, at least through next year.

Line 2: Flipper-Cleary-Sammy/Franzen: Assuming we retain Valterri, that line is also signed.

Line 3: Maltby-Draper-?: No Dallas Drake here. That's a hole. McCarty or Downey would likely not fit on this line even if they re-signed.

Line 4: Helm-Hudler-?: This line was juggled quite a lot during the season and playoffs. Assuming Kopecky is healthy next season, one sees him getting fourth line minutes. I myself see no reason to get rid of Hudler or Helm; Helm-Hudler-Kopy seems like an alright fourth line. This line was good with H-H-Mac during the playoffs, and Kopy (ideally) brings some of the hitting/grit of McCarty with a bit more energy/stamina and a *small* degree more of offensive upside.

So, we need someone for line three. (This assumes Helm has earned full-time duty in Detroit, which I believe he has.) We've maybe got Downey and possibly McCarty floating in the wings in case of injury/need to fight. You've also got Abdelkader ready to come up in times of need. Draper gets less than 2 million; Maltby gets less than 1. Who would you like to see on that line? At this point, we've got slightly more than ten million in cap space; Holland will surely want to save some of that for the trade deadline/injury insurance. The question is, do you get a Drake-style player who brings a bit of grit and leadership in, or do you go for someone in a 2.5-3 million range with a little more offensive upside (with Draper, they could produce SOME goals) and a bit more speed? Not that I'd necessarily want him, but a Sean Avery-type player, 2-3 million range, can score, agitates, etc. John Madden still has one year left on his contract in Jersey, and it's doubtful the Devils let a Selke candidate slip away, but imagine Madden playing alone side Maltby and Draper. He's about a 3 million dollar player. Or, again, a guy from the Devils who's a UFA this year: Jay Pandolfo. He's about a 1 million dollar player who never really found his offensive potential, but has grit and solid defensive skills.

Or, barring injury, Cleary moves to the third line and Franzen and Sammy stay on the second. (I'd rather see Cleary with Flipper and Franzen, but given Cleary's style of play, he fits in better with Draper and Malts than does Sammy.) But given the fact of injury, it's somewhat likely that one of our top six forwards will be injured at some point, moving Franzen, Cleary or Filppula to the top line and leaving a hole on our third.

Enough talk about that. Let's say that we get a third line player for 2.5 million.

New Total: 47.523 million.

Still almost nine million. Do we sign a big free agent to a one year deal (I know, easier said than done) just to give us that edge this year then rearrange the lines (putting Helm, Hudler or Kopecky likely out of a job) or just sit on the money to make a big deadline deal and make damn sure that Franzen and Hank get re-signed next year? That's the question, I guess.

**Wildcards. Here are some random things that I could see happening that change quite a bit in this analysis.

1a. Brad Stuart re-signs. Assuming Cheli and Lilja DON'T re-sign, this is less of a big deal because we can easily keep Ericcson down in Grand Rapids for another year (correct me if I'm wrong here). But, alternatively, assuming they BOTH re-sign, then we're back to Lids-Raf, Kron-Stu, Lils/Lebs/Cheli, which isn't my ideal, but is tolerable. However, the Stuart signing will push of over 50 million. This isn't really a problem, as we would still have room for a deadline deal, but it would pretty much eliminate a huge one-year signing.

1b. Stuart leaves, but Holland deems it necessary to sign another veteran D-Man. This would more likely happen (in my opinion) if Cheli (and, to a lesser degree, Lilja) depart. The situation would essentially be the same as 1a, but with a different name.

2. We sign a goalie. I know there has been talk of Ryan Miller; if this talk has any logical foundation whatsoever, I'm not sure. Still, it's possible that we could make a non-Ryan Miller signing to either be our number one or to back up Ozzie while Howard plays more in GR. At this point, I don't see us signing a back up for Ozzie; if we sign someone, it will be a starter for Ozzie to back up/tandem with. This means we're looking at someone probably well over 2 million. However, if Howard stayed in GR, his salary of (what I have guessed to be) about a million won't count against us. Signing a goalie of this caliber wouldn't necessarily preclude us from signing Stuart (or equivalent), but would then push our payroll withing 3 or 4 million of the cap.

3. The Flippula signing costs a lot more. Is 2.5 million a pipe dream for Filppula? I don't think so, though some might. However, there's the distinct possibility that someone offers him a sheet of a lot more. How high do we go for Filppula? 3 million? Maybe. 3.5? That's tough. 4? No chance, in my opinion. This contingency raises two possibilities: One, if we re-sign Filppula for a higher figure, we've got less money to do other things with. We could still probably get a goalie and a D-man, but we'd be really pushing the cap at that point, leaving less and less room for a deadline deal. Two, if we can't keep him, that means we've lost of secondary scoring. In theory, we have two top lines with Franzen, Cleary and Sammy making up the second line. Hudler COULD move up to those lines if there's injury, but that takes the teeth out of our fourth line. More importantly, we've got power play problems. The loss of Filppula would most likely necessitate a signing of at least moderate importance. In theory, if we lose Filppula, we'd have lots of room to offer Hossa a big deal for one year hoping that Helm/Hudler/Abdelkader could step up next year after we sign Z and Franzen.

. . .

So I doubt anyone will actually read this, but it's a lazy Sunday afternoon and I miss hockey already. At least thinking and writing about it makes me feel better.

Please? Mahalo.

[stormboy 47]

Please? Mahalo.

basically, we should have about 8 million of cap space left after plugging the holes from free agency, according to my (probably flawed) analysis. this doesn't include the fact that we might sign another goalie and assumes that brad stuart will leave and not be replaced (other than by moving up AHL defensemen). it also assume that we will retain filppula and not have to match a big offer sheet. if this is accurate, there's the option of making a one-year signing of an impact player or saving money for a big deadline deal. additionally, this will give us money to re-sign zetterberg and franzen next season.

cliffnotes for the cliffnotes: we're in pretty good shape, in my opinion.

[DaKineMaui 8]

cliffnotes for the cliffnotes: we're in pretty good shape, in my opinion.

I think so too.