The Red Wings, who have long walked a fine line near the cap's upper limit as one of the NHL's top spenders, are in a strangely unfamiliar position early this season, ranking just 18th in the league in projected cap spending around $59 million.
In large part, the Red Wings' change in cap fortune is the result of Brian Rafalski's unexpected retirement, which shaved $6 million off their payroll. General manager Ken Holland opted not to replace Rafalski's big ticket in full, perhaps because of the underwhelming nature of last summer's unrestricted free-agent market.
The Red Wings' cap payroll sits roughly $5.3 million below the $64.3 million upper limit. If they don't spend those dollars until February, that figure will translate into as much as $24 million in acquirable cap hits at the trade deadline.
It's a drastic contrast to last season, when the Red Wings had enough cap room to add only a league-minimum salary of $525,000 at the deadline. And it leaves Holland virtually without restrictions if he wants to load up his roster for the playoffs.
As it turns out, the Red Wings aren't the only team sitting pretty. A healthy $4.9 million increase in the limit has meant that teams simply aren't as tight to the cap as they were last season, when 12 teams were estimated to have exhausted almost every dollar of cap space.
Although more than half the league projects to spend upward of $60 million, most of those teams are comfortably below the limit of $64.3 million.
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